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"William Hnle . K.S.A 


SwanlilectricXn.fraving C 


PORTEOUS IN THE HANDS OF THE MOB. 



THE 


HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


BY 

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. 



LONDON 

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 
1898 


H 


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A' 


in Great SriuliL 


THE HEART OF IMIDLOTHIAN 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


WILLIAM HOLE, R.S.A. 


PORTEOUS IN THE HaNDS OF THE MOB . 

Saddletree laying down the Law 
Dumbiedikes’ Courtship 


Ph otogravure Frontisinecc 
Title-page Vignette 
. Facing p. 84 


Jeanie Deans and Robertson at jMuschat’s Cairn . 
Madge and her Mother before Bailie IVIiddlebuegh 

The Trial of Effie Deans 

MadgR Wildfire leading Jeanie into Church . 
Jeanie’s Interview with the Queen .... 
P Mrs. Dolly Dutton objects to cross the Water 
Lady Staunton rescued by the Whistler . 


156 

192 

246 

324 

390 

426 

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1 


TALES OF MY LANDLORD 

SeconlJ Series 


Hear, Land o’ Cakes and brither Scots, 

Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat’s, 

If there’s a hole in a’ your coats, 

I rede ye tent it ; 

A chiel’s amang you takin’ notes, 

An’ faith he’ll prent it ! 

Burns. 


Ahora hien, dixo il Cura, traedme, senor huesped, aquesos lihros, que\ 
los quiero ver. Que me place, respondio el, y entrando en su aposeidoK 
sac6 dil una maletilla vieja cerrada con una cadenilla, y abri&ndola hallA 
en ella ires lihros grandes y unos papeles de muy huena letra escritos d^ 
mano, — Don Quixote, Parte 1. Capitulo xxxii. 1 

It is mighty well, said the priest ; pray, landlord, bring me thosej 
books, for I have a mind to see them. With all my heart, answered the! 
host ; and going to his chamber, he brought out a little old cloke-bag,1 
with a padlock and chain to it, and opening it, he took out three large^ 
volumes, and some manuscript papers written in a fine character. — - 
Jarvis’s Translation. 


INTRODUCTION 


TO 

THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


The Author has stated in the preface to the Chronicles of the 
Canongate^ 1827, that he received from an anonymous corre- 
spondent an account of the incident upon which the following 
story is founded. He is now at liberty to say that the inform- 
ation was conveyed to him by a late amiable and ingenious 
lady, whose wit and power of remarking and judging of char- 
acter still survive in the memory of her friends. Her maiden 
name was Miss Helen Lawson, of Girthhead, and she was 
wife of Thomas Goldie, Esq., of Craigmuie, Commissary of 
Dumfries. 

Her communication was in these words : 

‘I had taken for summer lodgings a cottage near the old 
Abbey of Lincluden. It had formerly been inhabited by a lady 
who had pleasure in embellishing cottages, which she found 
perhaps homely and even poor enough; mine therefore pos- 
sessed many marks of taste and elegance unusual in this species 
of habitation in Scotland, where a cottage is literally what its 
name declares. 

‘From my cottage door I had a partial view of the old 
Abbey before mentioned ; some of the highest arches were seen 
over, and some through, the trees scattered along a lane which 
led down to the ruin, and the strange fantastic shapes of almost 
all those old ashes accorded wonderfully well with the building 
they at once shaded and ornamented. 

‘ The Abbey itself from my door was almost on a level with 
the cottage ; but on coming to the end of the lane, it was dis- 
covered to be situated on a high perpendicular bank, at the 


X 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


foot of which run the clear waters of the Cluden, where they 
hasten to join the sweeping Nith, 

Whose distant roaring swells and fa’s. 

As my kitchen and parlour were not very far distant, I one day 
went in to purchase some chickens from a person I heard offer- 
ing them for sale. It was a little, rather stout-looking woman, 
who seemed to be between seventy and eighty years of age ; 
she was almost covered with a tartan plaid, and her cap had 
over it a black silk hood, tied under the chin, a piece of dress 
still much in use among elderly women of that rank of life in 
Scotland ; her eyes were dark, and remarkably lively and in- 
telligent. I entered into conversation with her, and began by 
asking how she maintained herself, etc. 

‘ She said that in winter she footed stockings, that is, knit 
feet to country people’s stockings, which bears about the same 
relation to stocking-knitting that cobbling does to shoemaking, 
and is of course both less profitable and less dignified; she 
likewise taught a few children to read, and in summer she 
whiles reared a few chickens. 

I said I could venture to guess from her face she had never 
been married. She laughed heartily at this, and said, “ I maun 
hae the queerist face that ever was seen, that ye could guess 
that. Now, do tell me, madam, how ye cam to think sae ? ” I 
told her it was from her cheerful disengaged countenance. She 
said, “ Mem, have ye na far mair reason to be happy than me, 
wi’ a gude husband and a fine family o’ bairns, and plenty o’ 
everything ? For me, I’m the puirest o’ a’ puir bodies, and can 
hardly contrive to keep mysell alive in a’ thae wee bits o’ ways 
I hae tell’t ye.” After some more conversation, during which I 
was more and more pleased with the old woman’s sensible con- 
versation and the naivete of her remarks, she rose to go away, 
when I asked her name. Her countenance suddenly clouded, 
and she said gravely, rather colouring, “My name is Helen 
Walker ; but your husband kens weel about me.” 

‘ In the evening I related how much I had been pleased, and 
inquired w'hat was extraordinary in the history of the poor 

woman. Mr. said, there were perhaps few more remarkable 

people than Helen Walker. She had been left an orphan, with 
the charge of a sister considerably younger than herself, and 
who was educated and maintained by her exertions. Attached 
to her by so many ties, therefore, it will not be easy to conceive 
her feelings when she found that this only sister must be tried 


INTRODUCTION TO THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN xi 


by the laws of her country for child-murder, and upon being 
called as principal witness against her. The counsel for the 
prisoner told Helen, that if she could declare that her sister 
had made any preparations, however slight, or had given her 
any intimation on the subject, such a statement would save 
her sister’s life, as she was the principal witness against her. 
Helen said, It is impossible for me to swear to a falsehood ; 
and, whatever may be the consequence, I will give my oath 
according to my conscience.” 

‘ The trial came on, and the sister was found guilty and con- 
demned ; but, in Scotland, six weeks must elapse between the 
sentence and the execution, and Helen Walker availed herself 
of it. The very day of her sister’s condemnation, she got a 
petition drawn up, stating the peculiar circumstances of the 
case, and that very night set out on foot to London. 

‘ Without introduction or recommendation, with her simple, 
perhaps ill-expressed, petition, drawn up by some inferior clerk 
of the court, she presented herself, in her tartan plaid and 
country attire, to the late Duke of Argyle, who immediately 
procured the pardon she petitioned for, and Helen returned 
with it on foot, just in time to save her sister. 

‘ I was so strongly interested by this narrative, that I deter- 
mined immediately to prosecute my acquaintance with Helen 
Walker ; but as I was to leave the country next day, I was 
obliged to defer it till my return in spring, when the first walk 
I took was to Helen Walker’s cottage. 

‘ She had died a short time before. My regret was extreme, 
and I endeavoured to obtain some account of Helen from an 
old woman who inhabited the other end of her cottage. I in- 
quired if Helen ever spoke of her past history, her journey to 
London, etc. “ Na,” the old woman said, “ Helen was a wily 
body, and whene’er ony o’ the neebors asked anything about 
it, she aye turned the conversation.” 

‘ In short, every answer I received only tended to increase 
my regret, and raise my opinion of Helen Walker, who could 
unite so much prudence with so much heroic virtue.’ 

This narrative was inclosed in the following letter to the 
Author, without date or signature : — 

‘ Sir — The occurrence just related happened to me twenty- 
six years ago. Helen Walker lies buried in the churchyard of 
Irongray, about six miles from Dumfries. I once proposed that 


Xll 


WAYERLEY NOVELS 


a small monument should have been erected to commemorate 
so remarkable a character, but I now prefer leaving it to you to 
perpetuate her memory in a more durable manner.’ 

The reader is now able to judge how far the Author has 
improved upon, or fallen short of, the pleasing and interesting 
sketch of high principle and steady affection displayed by 
Helen Walker, the prototype of the fictitious Jeanie Deans. 
Mrs. Goldie was unfortunately dead before the Author had given 
his name to these volumes, so he lost all opportunity of thank- 
ing that lady for her highly valuable communication. But her 
daughter. Miss Goldie, obliged him with the following additional 
information : — 

‘Mrs. Goldie endeavoured to collect further particulars of 
Helen Walker, particularly concerning her journey to London, 
but found this nearly impossible ; as the natural dignity of her 
character, and a high sense of family respectability, made her 
so indissolubly connect her sister’s disgrace with her own exer- 
tions, that none of her neighbours durst ever question her upon 
the subject. One old woman, a distant relation of Helen’s, and 
who is still living, says she worked an harvest with her, but 
that she never ventured to ask her about her sister’s trial, or 
her journey to London. “Helen,” she added, “was a lofty 
body, and used a high style o’ language.” The same old 
woman says that every year Helen received a cheese from her 
sister, who lived at Whitehaven, and that she always sent a 
liberal portion of it to herself or to her father’s family. This 
fact, though trivial in itself, strongly marks the affection sub- 
sisting between the two sisters, and the complete conviction 
on the mind of the criminal that her sister had acted solely 
from high principle, not from any want of feeling, which another 
small but characteristic trait will further illustrate. A gentle- 
man, a relation of Mrs. Goldie’s, who happened to be travelling in 
the North of England, on coming to a small inn, was shown into 
the parlour by a female servant, who, after cautiously shutting 
the door, said, “Sir, I’m Nelly Walker’s sister.” Thus practically 
showing that she considered her sister as better known by her 
high conduct than even herself by a different kind of celebrity. 

‘Mrs. Goldie was extremely anxious to have a tombstone 
and an inscription upon it erected in Irongray churchyard; 
and if Sir Walter Scott will condescend to write the last, a 
little subscription could be easily raised in the immediate 
neighbourhood, and Mrs. Goldie’s wish be thus fulfilled.’ 


INTRODUCTION TO THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN xiii 

It is scarcely necessary to add, that the request of Miss 
Goldie will be most willingly complied with, and without the 
necessity of any tax on the public.* Nor is there much 
occasion to repeat how much the Author conceives himself 
obliged to his unknown correspondent, who thus supplied him 
with a theme affording such a pleasing view of the moral dignity 
of virtue, though unaided by birth, beauty, or talent. If the 
picture has suffered in the execution, it is from the failure of 
the Author’s powers to present in detail the same simple and 
striking portrait exhibited in Mrs. Goldie’s letter. 

Abbotsfokd, April 1, 1830. 


Although it would be impossible to add much to Mrs. Goldie’s 
picturesque and most interesting account of Helen Walker, the 
prototype of the imaginary Jeanie Deans, the Editor may be 
pardoned for introducing two or three anecdotes respecting 
that excellent person, which he has collected from a volume 
entitled Sketches from Nature^ by John M‘Diarmid, a gentle- 
man who conducts an able provincial paper in the town of 
Dumfries. 

Helen was the daughter of a small farmer in a place called 
Dalquhaim, in the parish of Irongray ; where, after the death 
of her father, she continued, with the unassuming piety of a 
Scottish peasant, to support her mother by her own unremitted 
labour and privations; a case so common that even yet, I am 
proud to say, few of my countrywomen would shrink from the 
duty. 

Helen Walker was held among her equals ‘ pensy,’ that is, 
proud or conceited ; but the facts brought to prove this accusa- 
tion seem only to evince a strength of character superior to those 
around her. Thus it was remarked, that when it thundered, 
she went with her work and her Bible to the front of the 
cottage, alleging that the Almighty could smite in the city as 
well as in the field. 

Mr. M‘Diarmid mentions more particularly the misfortune 
of her sister, which he supposes to have taken place previous 
to 1736. Helen Walker, declining every proposal of saving 
her relation’s life at the expense of truth, borrowed a sum of 
money sufficient for her journey, walked the whole distance 
to London barefoot, and made her way to John Duke of Argyle. 

* See Tombstone to Helen Walker. Note 1. 


XIV 


WAVEELEY NOVELS 


She was heard to say that, by the Almighty’s strength, she 
had been enabled to meet the Duke at the most critical moment, 
which, if lost, would have caused the inevitable forfeiture of 
her sister’s life. 

Isabella, or Tibby Walker, saved from the fate which im- 
pended over her, was married by the person who had wronged 
her (named Waugh), and lived happily for great part of a 
century, uniformly acknowledging the extraordinary affection 
to which she owed her preservation. 

Helen Walker died about the end of the year 1791, and 
her remains are interred in the churchyard of her native 
parish of Irongray, in a romantic cemetery on the banks of 
the Cairn. That a character so distinguished for her undaunted 
love of virtue lived and died in poverty, if not want, serves 
only to show us how insignificant, in the sight of Heaven, are 
our principal objects of ambition upon earth. 


TO THE BEST OP PATRONS, 


A PLEASED AND INDULGENT DEADER, 
JEDEDIAH CLEISHBOTHAM 

WISHES HEALTH, AND INCREASE, AND CONTENTMENT 


Courteous Reader, 

If ingratitude comprehendeth every vice, surely so foul a stain 
worst of all beseemeth him wRose life has been devoted to 
instructing youth in virtue and in humane letters. Therefore 
have I chosen, in this prolegomenon, to unload my burden of 
thanks at thy feet, for the favour with which thou hast kindly 
entertained the Tales of my Landlord. Certes, if thou hast 
chuckled over their facetious and festivous descriptions, or hast 
thy mind filled with pleasure at the strange and pleasant turns 
of fortune which they record, verily, I have also simpered when 
I beheld a second story with attics, that has arisen on the basis ‘ 
of my small domicile at Gandercleugh, the walls having been 
aforehand pronounced by Deacon Barrow to be capable of endur- 
ing such an elevation. Nor has it been without delectation that 
I have endued a new coat (snufF-brown, and with metal buttons), 
having all nether garments corresponding thereto. We do 
therefore lie, in respect of each other, under a reciprocation of 
benefits, whereof those received by me being the most solid, 
in respect that a new house and a new coat are better than a 
new tale and an old song, it is meet that my gratitude should 
be expressed with the louder voice and more preponderating ' 
vehemence. And how should it be so expressed? Certainly 
not in words only, but in act and deed. It is with this sole 
purpose, and disclaiming all intention of purchasing that pen- 


XVI 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


dicle or poffle of land called the Carlinescroft, lying adjacent to 
my garden, and measuring seven acres, three roods, and four 
perches, that I have committed to the eyes of those who thought 
well of the former tomes, these four additional volumes * of the 
Tales of my Landlord. Not the less, if Peter Prayfort be minded 
to sell the said poffle, it is at his own choice to say so ; and, 
peradventure, he may meet with a purchaser; unless, gentle 
Reader, the pleasing pourtraictures of Peter Pattieson, now given 
unto thee in particular, and unto the public in general, shall 
have lost their favour in thine eyes, whereof I am no way dis- 
trustful. And so much confidence do I repose in thy continued 
favour, that, should thy lawful occasions call thee to the town 
of Gandercleugh, a place frequented by most at one time or 
other in their lives, I will enrich thine eyes with a sight of 
those precious manuscripts whence thou hast derived so much 
delectation, thy nose with a snuff from my mull, and thy palate 
with a dram from my bottle of strong waters, called by the 
learned of Gandercleugh the Dominie’s Dribble o’ Drink. 

It is there, 0 highly esteemed and beloved Reader, thou wilt 
be able to bear testimony, through the medium of thine own 
senses, against the children of vanity, who have sought to 
identify thy friend and servant with I know not what inditer 
of vain fables ; who hath cumbered the world with his devices, 
but shrunken from the responsibility thereof. Truly, this hath 
been well termed a generation hard of faith ; since what can a 
man do to assert his property in a printed tome, saving to put 
his name in the title-page thereof, with his description, or 
designation, as the lawyers term it, and place of abode? Of 
a surety I would have such sceptics consider how they them- 
selves would brook to have their works ascribed to others, 
their names and professions imputed as forgeries, and their 
very existence brought into question; even although, perad- 
venture, it may be it is of little consequence to any but them- 
selves, not only whether they are living* or dead, but even 
whether they ever lived or no. Yet have my maligners carried 
their uncharitable censures still farther. These cavillers 
have not only doubted mine identity, although thus plainly 
proved, but they have impeached my veracity and the 
authenticity of my historical narratives ! Verily, I can 
only say in answer, that I have been cautelous in quoting 
mine authorities. It is true, indeed, that if I had hearkened 
with only one ear, I might have rehearsed my tale with 
* [The Heart of Midlothian was originally published in four volumes.] 


INTRODUCTION TO THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN xvii 


more acceptation from those who love to hear but half the 
truth. It is, it may hap, not altogether to the discredit of 
our kindly nation of Scotland, that we are apt to take an 
interest, warm, yea partial, in the deeds and sentiments of our 
forefathers. He whom his adversaries describe as a perjured 
Prelatist, is desirous that his predecessors should be held 
moderate in their power, and just in their execution of its 
privileges, when, truly, the unimpassioned peruser of the 
annals of those times shall deem them sanguinary, violent, 
and tyrannical. 

Again, the representatives of the suffering nonconformists 
desire that their ancestors, the Cameronians, shall be repre- 
sented not simply as honest enthusiasts, oppressed for con- 
science sake, hut persons of fine breeding, and valiant heroes. 
Truly, the historian cannot gratify these predilections. He 
must needs describe the Cavaliers as proud and high-spirited, 
cruel, remorseless, and vindictive ; the suffering party as honour- 
ably tenacious of their opinions under persecution, their own 
tempers being, however, sullen, fierce, and rude, their opinions 
absurd and extravagant, and their whole course of conduct 
that of persons whom hellebore would better have suited than 
prosecutions unto death for high treason. Natheless, while 
such and so preposterous were the opinions on either side, there 
were, it cannot be doubted, men of virtue and worth on both, 
to entitle either party to claim merit from its martyrs. It has 
been demanded of me, Jedediah Cleishbotham, by what right 
I am entitled to constitute myself an impartial judge of their 
discrepancies of opinions, seeing (as it is stated) that I must 
necessarily have descended from one or other of the contending 
parties, and be, of course, wedded for better or for w^orse, 
according to the reasonable practice of Scotland, to its dogmata, 
or opinions, and bound, as it w’ere, by the tie matrimonial, or, 
to speak without metaphor, ex jure sanguinis, to maintain them 
in preference to all others. 

But, nothing denying the rationality of the rule, which calls 
on all now living to rule their political and religious opinions 
by those of their great-grandfathers, and inevitable as seems 
the one or the other horn of the dilemma betwixt which my 
adversaries conceive they have pinned me to the wall, I yet 
spy some means of refuge, and claim a privilege to write and 
speak of both parties with impartiality. For, 0 ye powers of 
logic ! when the Prelatists and Presbyterians of old times went 
together by the ears in this unlucky country, my ancestor 


xviii WAVERLEY NOVELS 

— venerated be his memory ! — was one of the people called 
Quakers,* and suffered severe handling from either side, even 
to the extenuation of his purse and the incarceration of his 
person. 

Craving thy pardon, gentle Reader, for these few words 
concerning me and mine, I rest, as above expressed, thy sure 
and obligated friend, 

J. C. 

Gandercleugh, this \st of April, 1818. 


* See Sir Walter Scott’s Relations with the Quakers. Note 2. 


THE HEAKT OF MIDLOTHIAN 


CHAPTER I 

BEING INTRODUCTORY 

So down thy hill, romantic Ashboiirn, glides 
The Derby diUy, carrying six insides. 

Frere. 

The times have changed in nothing more — we follow as we 
were wont the manuscript of Peter Pattieson — than in the rapid 
conveyance of intelligence and communication betwixt one part 
of Scotland and another. It is not above twenty or thirty 
years, according to the evidence of many credible witnesses 
now alive, since a little miserable horse -cart, performing with 
difficulty a journey of thirty miles per dieniy carried our mails 
from the capital of Scotland to its extremity. Nor was Scotland 
much more deficient in these accommodations than our richer 
sister had been about eighty years before. Fielding, in his Tom 
Jones, and Farquhar, in a little farce called the Stage-Coach, 
have ridiculed the slowness of these vehicles of public accom- 
modation. According to the latter authority, the highest bribe 
could only induce the coachman to promise to anticipate by half 
an hour the usual time of his arrival at the Bull and Mouth. 

But in both countries these ancient, slow, and sure modes 
of conveyance are now alike unknown : mail-coach races against 
mail-coach, and high-flyer against high-flyer, through the most 
remote districts of Britain. And in our village alone, three 
post-coaches, and four coaches with men armed, and in scarlet 
cassocks, thunder through the streets each day, and rival in 
brilliancy and noise the invention of the celebrated tyrant : 

Demens, qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen, 
iEre et cornipedum pulsu, simularat, equorum. 


VII 


2 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Now and then, to complete the resemblance, and to correct 
the presumption of the venturous charioteers, it does happen 
that the career of these dashing rivals of Salmoneus meets with 
as undesirable and violent a termination as that of their proto- 
type. It is on such occasions that the ‘ insides ’ and ‘ outsides,’ 
to use the appropriate vehicular phrases, have reason to rue the 
exchange of the slow and safe motion of the ancient fly-coaches, 
which, compared with the chariots of Mr. Palmer, so ill deserve 
the name. The ancient vehicle used to settle quietly down, 
like a ship scuttled and left to sink by the gradual influx of the 
waters, while the modern is smashed to pieces with the velocity 
of the same vessel hurled against breakers, or rather with 
the fury of a bomb bursting at the conclusion of its career 
through the air. The late ingenious Mr. Pennant, whose 
humour it was to set his face in stern opposition to these 
speedy conveyances, had collected, I have heard, a formidable 
list of such casualties, which, joined to the imposition of 
innkeepers, whose charges the passengers had no time to 
dispute, the sauciness of the coachman, and the uncontrolled 
and despotic authority of the tyrant called the guard, held 
forth a picture of horror, to which murder, theft, fraud, and 
peculation lent all their dark colouring. But that which 
gratifies the impatience of the human disposition will be 
practised in the teeth of danger, and in defiance of admoni- 
tion ; and, in despite of the Cambrian antiquary, mail-coaches 
not only roll their thunders round the base of Penmen-Maur 
and Cader-Edris, but 

Frighted Skiddaw hears ‘afar 

The rattling of the unscythed car. 

And perhaps the echoes of Ben Nevis may soon be awakened 
by the bugle, not of a warlike chieftain, but of the guard of a 
mail-coach. 

It was a fine summer day, and our little school had obtained 
a half holy day, by the intercession of a good-humoured visitor.* 
I expected by the coach a new number of an interesting 
periodical publication, and walked forward on the highway to 
meet it, with the impatience which Cowper has described as 
actuating the resident in the country when longing for intelli- 
gence from the mart of news : 

of importance Goslinn of Gandercleugh ; for I love to be precise in matters 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


3 


The grand debate, 

The popular harangue, the tart reply, 

The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit, 

And the loud laugh, — I long to know them all ; 

I burn to set the imprison’d wranglers free. 

And give them voice and utterance again. 

It was with such feelings that I eyed the approach of the 
new coach, lately established on our road, and known by the 
name of the Somerset, which, to say truth, possesses some 
interest for me, even when it conveys no such important 
information. The distant tremulous sound of its wheels was 
heard just as I gained the summit of the gentle ascent, called 
the Goslin brae, from which you command an extensive view 
down the valley of the river Gander. The public road, which 
comes up the side of that stream, and crosses it at a bridge 
about a quarter of a mile from the place where I was standing, 
runs partly through inclosures and plantations, and partly 
through open pasture land. It is a childish amusement per- 
haps — but my life has been spent with children, and why 
should not my pleasures be like theirs ? — childish as it is, then, 
I must own I have had great pleasure in watching the approach 
of the carriage, where the openings of the road permit it to be 
seen. The gay glancing of the equipage, its diminished and 
toy-like appearance at a distance, contrasted with the rapidity 
of its motion, its appearance and disappearance at intervals, 
and the progressively increasing sounds that announce its 
nearer approach, have all to the idle and listless spectator, who 
has nothing more important to attend to, something of awaken- 
ing interest. The ridicule may attach to me, which is flung 
upon many an honest citizen, who watches from the window of 
his villa the passage of the stage-coach ; but it is a very natural 
source of amusement notwithstanding, and many of those who 
join in the laugh are perhaps not unused to resort to it in secret. 

On the present occasion, however, fate had decreed that I 
should not enjoy the consummation of the amusement by seeing 
the coach rattle past me as I sat on the turf, and hearing the 
hoarse grating voice of the guard as he skimmed forth for my 
grasp the expected packet, without the carriage checking its 
course for an instant. I had seen the vehicle thunder down 
the hill that leads to the bridge with more than its usual 
impetuosity, glittering all the while by flashes from a cloudy 
tabernacle of the dust which it had raised, and leaving a train 
behind it on the road resembling a wreath of summer mist. 


4 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


But it did not appear on the top of the nearer bank within the i 
usual space of three minutes, which frequent observation had j 
enabled me to ascertain was the medium time for crossing the 
bridge and mounting the ascent. When double that space j 
had elapsed, I became alarmed, and walked hastily forward. -As j 
I came in sight of the bridge, the cause of delay was too ' 
manifest, for the Somerset had made a summerset in good | 
earnest, and overturned so completely, that it was literally 
resting upon the ground, with the roof undermost, and the 
four wheels in the air. The ‘ exertions of the guard and coach- 
man,’ both of whom were gratefully commemorated in the i 
newspapers, having succeeded in disentangling the horses by 
cutting the harness, were now proceeding to extricate the ‘ in- 
sides ’ by a sort of summary and Caesarean process of delivery, 
forcing the hinges from one of the doors which they could not v 
open otherwise. In this manner were two disconsolate damsels 
set at liberty from the womb of the leathern conveniency. As 
they immediately began to settle their clothes, which were a 1 
little deranged, as may be presumed, I concluded they had re- j 
ceived no injury, and did not venture to obtrude my services 
at their toilette, for which, I understand, I have since been | 
reflected upon by the fair sufferers. The ‘ outsides,’ who must ' 
have been discharged from their elevated situation by a shock I 
resembling the springing of a mine, escaped, nevertheless, with ' 
the usual allowance of scratches and bruises, excepting three, 
who, having been pitched into the river Gander, were dimly 
seen contending with the tide, like the relics of Eneas’s | 
shipwreck — i 

Rari apparent nantes in gurgite vasto. 

I applied my poor exertions where they seemed to be most ' 
needed, and with the assistance of one or two of the company 
who had escaped unhurt, easily succeeded in fishing out two of 
the unfortunate passengers, who were stout active young fellows ; j 
and but for the preposterous length of their greatcoats, and 
the equally fashionable latitude and longitude of their Welling- I 
ton trousers, would have required little assistance from any one. 
The third was sickly and elderly, and might have perished but ' 
for the efforts used to preserve him. i 

When the two greatcoated gentlemen had extricated them- • 
selves from the river, and shaken their ears like huge water- i 
dogs, a violent altercation ensued betwixt them and the coach- ^ 
man and guard, concerning the cause of their overthrow. In ' 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


5 


the course of the squabble, I observed that both my neAv ac- 
quaintances belonged to the law, and that their professional 
sharpness was likely to prove an overmatch for the surly and 
official tone of the guardians of the vehicle. The dispute ended 
in the guard assuring the passengers that they should have 
seats in a heavy coach which would pass that spot in less than 
half an hour, providing it were not full. Chance seemed to 
favour this arrangement, for when the expected vehicle arrived, 
there were only two places occupied in a carriage which pro- 
fessed to carry six. The two ladies who had been disinterred 
out of the fallen vehicle were readily admitted, but positive 
objections were stated by those previously in possession to the 
admittance of the two lawyers, whose wetted garments being 
much of the nature of well-soaked spunges, there was every 
reason to believe they would refund a considerable part of the 
water they had collected, to the inconvenience of their fellow- 
passengers. On the other hand, the lawyers rejected a seat on 
the roof, alleging that they had only taken that station for 
pleasure for one stage, but were entitled in all respects to free 
egress and regress from the interior, to which their contract 
positively referred. After some altercation, in which something 
was said upon the edict Kautce^ caupones, stahularii, the coach 
went off, leaving the learned gentlemen to abide by their action 
of damages. 

They immediately applied to me to guide them to the next 
village and the best inn ; and from the account I gave them of 
the Wallace Head, declared they were much better pleased to 
stop there than to go forward upon the terms of that impudent 
scoundrel the guard of the Somerset. All that they now wanted 
was a lad to carry their travelling bags, who was easily pro- 
cured from an adjoining cottage; and they prepared to walk 
forward, when they found there was another passenger in the 
same deserted situation with themselves. This was the elderly 
and sickly-looking person who had been precipitated into the 
river along with the two young lawyers. He, it seems, had been 
too modest to push his own plea against the coachman when he 
saw that of his betters rejected, and now remained behind with 
a look of timid anxiety, plainly intimating that he was deficient 
in those means of recommendation which are necessary passports 
to the hospitality of an inn. 

I ventured to call the attention of the two dashing young 
blades, for such they seemed, to the desolate condition of their 
fellow-traveller. They took the hint with ready good-nature. 


6 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘0, true, Mr. Diinover,’ said one of the youngsters, ‘you 
must not remain on the 'pave here ; you must go and have some 
dinner with us ; Halkit and I must have a post-chaise to go on, 
at all events, and we will set you down wherever suits you 
best.’ 

The poor man, for such his dress, as well as his diffidence, 
bespoke him, made the sort of acknowledging bow by which 
says a Scotchman, ‘ It’s too much honour for the like of me ’ ; 
and followed humbly behind his gay patrons, all three be- 
sprinkling the dusty road as they walked along with the 
moisture of their drenched garments, and exhibiting the sin- 
gular and somewhat ridiculous appearance of three persons 
suffering from the opposite extreme of humidity, while the 
summer sun was at its height, and everything else around them 
had the expression of heat and drought. The ridicule did not 
escape the young gentlemen themselves, and they had made 
what might be received as one or two tolerable jests on the 
subject before they had advanced far on their peregrination. 

‘ We cannot complain, like Cowley,’ said one of them, ‘ that 
Gideon’s fleece remains dry, while all around is moist ; this is 
the reverse of the miracle.’ 

‘We ought to be received wdth gratitude in this good town ; 
we bring a supply of what they seem to need most,’ said Halkit. 

‘ And distribute it with unparalleled generosity,’ replied his 
companion ; ‘ performing the part of three water-carts for the 
benefit of their dusty roads.’ 

‘We come before them, too,’ said Halkit, ‘in full professional 
force — counsel and agent ’ 

‘ And client,’ said the young advocate, looking behind him. 
And then added, lowering his voice, ‘ that looks as if he had 
kept such dangerous company too long.’ 

It was, indeed, too true, that the humble follower of the gay 
young men had the threadbare appearance of a worn-out liti- 
gant, and I could not but smile at the conceit, though anxious 
to conceal my mirth from the object of it. 

When we arrived at the Wallace Inn, the elder of the Edin- 
burgh gentlemen, and whom I understood to be a barrister, 
insisted that I should remain and take part of their dinner ; 
and their inquiries and demands speedily put my Landlord and 
his whole family in motion to produce the best cheer which the 
larder and cellar afforded, and proceed to cook it to the best 
advantage, a science in which our entertainers seemed to be 
admirably skilled. In other respects they were lively young 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


7 


men, in the heyday of youth and good spirits, playing the 
part which is common to the higher classes of the law at Edin- 
burgh, and which nearly resembles that of the young Templars 
in the days of Steele and Addison. An air of giddy gaiety 
mingled with the good sense, taste, and information which their 
conversation exhibited ; and it seemed to be their object to 
unite the character of men of fashion and lovers of the polite 
arts. A fine gentleman, bred up in the thorough idleness and 
inanity of pursuit, which I understand is absolutely necessary 
to the character in perfection, might in all probability have 
traced a tinge of professional pedantry which marked the 
barrister in spite of his efforts, and something of active bustle 
in his companion, and would certainly have detected more than 
a fashionable mixture of information and animated interest in 
the language of both. But to me, who had no pretensions to 
be so critical, my companions seemed to form a very happy 
mixture of good-breeding and liberal information, with a dis- 
position to lively rattle, pun, and jest, amusing to a grave man, 
because it is what he himself can least easily command. 

The thin pale-faced man, whom their good-nature had 
brought into their society, looked out of place, as well as out 
of spirits, sate on the edge of his seat, and kept the chair at 
two feet distance from the table, thus incommoding himself 
considerably in conveying the victuals to his mouth, as if by 
way of penance for partaking of them in the company of his 
superiors. A short time after dinner, declining all entreaty to 
partake of the wine, which circulated freely round, he informed 
himself of the hour when the chaise had been ordered to attend ; 
and saying he would be in readiness, modestly withdrew from 
the apartment. 

‘ Jack,’ said the barrister to his companion, ‘ I remember that 
poor fellow’s face ; you spoke more truly than you were aware 
of ; he really is one of my clients, poor man.’ 

‘ Poor man ! ’ echoed Halkit. ‘ I suppose you mean he is 
your one and only client ? ’ 

‘ That’s not my fault. Jack,’ replied the other, whose name I 
discovered was Hardie. ‘ You are to give me all your business, 
you know ; and if you have none, the learned gentleman here 
knows nothing can come of nothing.’ 

^You seem to have brought something to nothing though, 
in the case of that honest man. He looks as if he were just 
about to honour with his residence the Heart of Midlothian.’ 

‘ You are mistaken : he is just delivered from it. Our friend 


8 Waverley novels 

here looks Jor an explanation. Pray, Mr. Pattieson, have you 
been- in Edinburgh T 

I answered in the affirmative. 

‘ Then you must have passed, occasionally at least, though 
probably not so faithfully as I am doomed to do, through a 
narrow intricate passage, leading out of the north-west corner 
of the Parliament Square, and passing by a high and antique 
building, with turrets and iron grates. 

Making good the saying odd, 

Near tlie church and far from God ’ — 

Mr. Halkit broke in upon his learned counsel, to contribute 
his moiety to the riddle — ‘ Having at the door the sign of the 
Red Man ’ 

‘And being on the whole,’ resumed the counsellor, interrupt- 
ing his friend in his turn, ‘ a sort of place where misfortune is 
happily confounded with guilt, where all who are in wish to get 
out ’ 

‘ And where none who have the good luck to be out wish to 
get in,’ added his companion. 

‘I conceive you, gentlemen,’ replied I: ‘you mean the 
prison.’ 

‘The prison,’ added the young lawyer. ‘You have hit it — 
the very reverend tolbooth itself ; and let me tell you, you are 
obliged to us for describing it with so much modesty and 
brevity ; for with whatever amplifications we might have chosen 
to decorate the subject, you lay entirely at our mercy, since the 
Fathers Conscript of our city have decreed that the venerable 
edifice itself shall not remain in existence to confirai or to 
confute us.’ 

‘Then the tolbooth of Edinburgh is called the Heart of 
Midlothian ? ’ said I. 

‘ So termed and reputed, I assure you.’ 

‘ I think,’ said I, with the bashful diffidence with which a 
man lets slip a pun in presence of his superiors, ‘ the metro- 
politan county may, in that case, be said to have a sad heart.’ 

‘ Right as my glove, Mr. Pattieson,’ added Mr. Hardie ; ‘ and 
a close heart, and a hard heart. Keep it up. Jack.’ 

‘ And a wicked heart, and a poor heart,’ answered Halkit, 
doing his best. 

‘ And yet it may be called in some sort a strong heart, and 
a high heart,’ rejoined the advocate. ‘You see I can put you 
both out of heart.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


9 


‘ I have played all my hearts/ said the younger gentle- 
man. 

‘ Then we’ll have another lead,’ answered his companion. 
‘And as to the old and condemned tolbooth, what pity the 
same honour cannot he done to it as has been done to many 
of its inmates. Why should not the tolbooth have its “ Last 
Speech, Confession, and Dying Words ” ? The old stones would 
be just as conscious of the honour as many a poor devil who 
has dangled like a tassel at the west end of it, while the 
hawkers were shouting a confession the culprit had never 
heard of.’ 

‘ I am afraid,’ said I, ‘ if I might presume to give my opinion, 
it would be a tale of unvaried sorrow and guilt.’ 

‘Not entirely, my friend,’ said Hardie; ‘a prison is a world 
within itself, and has its own business, griefs, and joys, peculiar 
to its circle. Its inmates are sometimes short-lived, but so are 
soldiers on service ; they are poor relatively to the world with- 
out, but there are degrees of wealth and poverty among them, 
and so some are relatively rich also. They cannot stir abroad, 
but neither can the garrison of a besieged fort, or the crew of 
a ship at sea ; and they are not under a dispensation quite so 
desperate as either, for they may have as much food as they 
have money to buy, and are not obliged to work whether they 
have food or not.’ 

‘ But what variety of incident,’ said I, not without a secret 
view to my present task, ‘ could possibly be derived from such 
a work as you are pleased to talk of ? ’ 

‘ Infinite,’ replied the young advocate. ‘ Whatever of guilt, 
crime, imposture, folly, unheard-of misfortunes, and unlooked- 
for change of fortune, can be found to chequer life, my Last 
Speech of the Tolbooth should illustrate with examples suffi- 
cient to gorge even the public’s all-devouring appetite for the 
wonderful and horrible. The inventor of fictitious narratives 
has to rack his brains for means to diversify his tale, and after 
all can hardly hit upon characters or incidents which have not 
been used again and again, until they are familiar to the eye 
of the reader, so that the development, enlevement^ the desperate 
wound of which the hero never dies, the burning fever from 
which the heroine is sure to recover, become a mere matter of 
course. I join with my honest friend Crabbe, and have an 
unlucky propensity to hope when hope is lost, and to rely upon 
the cork -jacket, which carries the heroes of romance safe 
through all the billows of affliction.’ He then declaimed the 


10 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


following passage, rather with too much than too little em- 
phasis : — 

Much have I fear’d, hut am no more afraid, 

When some chaste beauty, by some wretch betray’d, 

Is drawn away with such distracted speed. 

That she anticipates a dreadful deed. 

Not so do I. Let solid walls impound 
The captive fair, and dig a moat around ; 

Let there be brazen locks and bars of steel, 

And keepers cruel, such as never feel ; 

With not a single note the purse supply, 

And when she begs, let men and maids deny ; 

Be windows those from which she dares not fall, 

And help so distant, ’tis in vain to call ; 

Still means of freedom will some Power devise, 

And from the baffled ruffian snatch his prize. 

‘The end of uncertainty,’ he concluded, ‘is the death of 
interest ; and hence it happens that no one now reads novels.’ 

‘ Hear him, ye gods ! ’ returned his companion. ‘ I assure 
you, Mr. Pattieson, you will hardly visit this learned gentle- 
man, but you are likely to find the new novel most in repute 
lying on his table — snugly intrenched, however, beneath Stair’s 
Institutes, or an open volume of Morison’s Decisions.^ 

‘Do I deny it?’ said the hopeful jurisconsult, ‘or wherefore 
should I, since it is well known these Dalilahs seduced my 
wisers and my betters? May they not be found lurking 
amidst the multiplied memorials of our most distinguished 
counsel, and even peeping from under the cushion of a judge’s 
arm-chair? Our seniors at the bar, within the bar, and even 
on the bench, read novels ; and, if not belied, some of them 
have written novels into the bargain. I only say, that I read 
from habit and from indolence, not from real interest ; that, 
like Ancient Pistol devouring his leek, I read and swear till I 
get to the end of the narrative. But not so in the real records 
of human vagaries, not so in the State Trials, or in the Boohs 
of Adjournal, where every now and then you read new pages 
of the human heart, and turns of fortune far beyond what the 
boldest novelist ever attempted to produce from the coinage of 
his brain.’ 

‘ And for such narratives,’ I asked, ‘ you suppose the history 
of the prison of Edinburgh might afford appropriate materials ? ’ 

‘In a degree unusually ample, my dear sir,’ said Hardie. 
‘ Fill your glass, however, in the meanwhile. Was it not for 
many years the place in which the Scottish Parliament met ? 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


11 


Was it not James’s place of refuge, when the mob, inflamed by 
a seditious preacher, broke forth on him with the cries of ‘ The 
sword of the Lord and of Gideon; bring forth the wicked Haman’? 
Since that time how many hearts have throbbed within these 
walls, as the tolling of the neighbouring bell announced to them 
how fast the sands of their life were ebbing ; how many must 
have sunk at the sound ; how many were supported by stubborn 
pride and dogged resolution ; how many by the consolations of 
religion ? Have there not been some, who, looking back on the 
motives of their crimes, were scarce able to understand how they 
should have had such temptation as to seduce them from virtue ? 
and have there not, perhaps, been others, who, sensible of their 
innocence, were divided between indignation at the undeserved 
doom which they were to undergo, consciousness that they had 
not deserved it, and racking anxiety to discover some way in 
which they might yet vindicate themselves ? Do you suppose 
any of these deep, powerful, and agitating feelings can be 
recorded and perused without exciting a corresponding depth 
of deep, powerful, and agitating interest ? 0 ! do but wait till 

I publish the cames cdlehres of Caledonia, and you will find no 
want of a novel or a tragedy for some time to come. The true 
thing will triumph over the brightest inventions of the most 
ardent imagination. Magna est veritas, et proevalebiV 

‘ I have understood,’ said I, encouraged by the affability 
of my rattling entertainer, ‘ that less of this interest must 
attach to Scottish jurisprudence than to that of any other 
country. The general morality of our people, their sober and 
prudent habits ’ 

‘ Secure them,’ said the barrister, ‘ against any great increase 
of professional thieves and depredators, but not against wild 
and wayward starts of fancy and passion, producing crimes of 
an extraordinary description, which are precisely those to the 
detail of which we listen with thrilling interest. England has 
been much longer a highly civilised country ; her subjects have 
been very strictly amenable to laws administered without fear 
or favour ; a complete division of labour has taken place among 
her subjects; and the very thieves and robbers form a distinct 
class in society, subdivided among themselves according to the 
subject of their depredations, and the mode in which they carry 
them on, acting upon regular habits and principles, which can 
be calculated and anticipated at Bow Street, Hatton Garden, or 
the Old Bailey. Our sister kingdom is like a cultivated field : 
the farmer expects that, in spite of all his care, a certain number 


12 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


of weeds will rise with the corn, and can tell you beforehand 
their names and appearance. But Scotland is like one of her 
own Highland glens, and the moralist who reads the records of 
her criminal jurisprudence will find as many curious anomalous 
facts in the history of mind as the botanist will detect rare 
specimens among her dingles and cliffs.’ 

‘And that’s all the good you have obtained from three 
perusals of the Commentaries on Scottish Criminal Jurispru- 
dence^^ said his companion. ‘I suppose the learned author 
very little thinks that the facts which his erudition and acute- 
ness have accumulated for the illustration of legal doctrines 
might be so arranged as to form a sort of appendix to the 
half-bound and slip-shod volumes of the circulating library.’ 

‘I’ll bet you a pint of claret,’ said the elder lawyer, ‘that 
he will not feel sore at the comparison. But as we say at the 
bar, “ I beg I may not be interrupted ” j I have much more to 
say upon my Scottish collection of causes cilehres. You will 
please recollect the scope and motive given for the contrivance 
and execution of many extraordinary and daring crimes, by 
the long civil dissensions of Scotland ; by the hereditary 
jurisdictions, which, until 1748, rested the investigation of 
crimes in judges, ignorant, partial, or interested ; by the habits 
of the gentry, shut up in their distant and solitary mansion- 
houses, nursing their revengeful passions just to keep their 
blood from stagnating; not to mention that amiable national 
qualification, called the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum, which 
our lawyers join in alleging as a reason for the severity of some 
of our enactments. When I come to treat of matters so 
mysterious, deep, and dangerous as these circumstances have 
given rise to, the blood of each reader shall be curdled, and 
his epidermis crisped into goose-skin. But, hist ! here comes 
the landlord, with tidings, I suppose, that the chaise is ready.’ 

It was no such thing : the tidings bore, that no chaise 
could be had that evening, for Sir Peter Plyem had carried 
forward my Landlord’s two pairs of horses that morning to the 
ancient royal borough of Bubbleburgh, to look after his interest 
there. But as Bubbleburgh is only one of a set of five boroughs 
which club their shares for a member of Parliament, Sir Peter’s 
adversary had judiciously watched his departure, in order to 
commence a canvass in the no less royal borough of Bitem, 
which, as all the world knows, lies at the very termination 
of Sir Peter’s avenue, and has been held in leading-strings 
by him and his ancestors for time immemorial. Now Sir Peter 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


13 


was thus placed in the situation of an ambitious monarch, who, 
after having commenced a daring inroad into his enemies’ 
territories, is suddenly recalled by an invasion of his own 
hereditary dominions. He was obliged in consequence to 
return from the half -won borough of Bubbleburgh, to look 
after the half -lost borough of Bitem^ and the two pairs of 
horses which had carried him that morning to Bubbleburgh 
were now forcibly detained to transport him, his agent, his 
valet, his jester, and his hard -drinker across the country to 
Bitem. The cause of this detention, which to me was of as 
little consequence as it may be to the reader, w^as important 
enough to my companions to reconcile them to the delay. 
Like eagles, they smelled the battle afar off, ordered a magnum 
of claret and beds at the Wallace, and entered at full career 
into the Bubbleburgh and Bitem politics, with all the probable 
‘ petitions and complaints ’ to which they were likely to give 
rise. 

In the midst of an anxious, animated, and, to me, most 
unintelligible discussion, concerning provosts, bailies, deacons, 
sets of boroughs, leets, town -clerks, burgesses resident and 
non-resident, all of a sudden the lawyer recollected himself. 
‘Poor Dunover, we must not forget him’; and the landlord 
was despatched in quest of the pam^re honteux^ with an earnestly 
civil invitation to him for the rest of the evening. I could not 
help asking the young gentlemen if they knew the history 
of this poor man; and the counsellor applied himself to his 
pocket to recover the memorial or brief from which he had 
stated his cause. 

‘ He has been a candidate for our remedium miserahile^ said 
Mr. Hardie, ‘ commonly called a cessio honorum. As there are 
divines who have doubted the eternity of future punishments, 
so the Scotch lawyers seem to have thought that the crime 
of poverty might be atoned for by something short of perpetual 
imprisonment. After a month’s confinement, you must know, 
a prisoner for debt is entitled, on a sufficfent statement to 
our Supreme Court, setting forth the amount of his funds, and 
the nature of his misfortunes, and surrendering all his effects 
to his creditors, to claim to be discharged from prison.’ 

‘I had heard,’ I replied, ‘of such a humane regulation.’ 

‘Yes,’ said Halkit, ‘and the beauty of it is, as the foreign 
fellow said, you may get the cessio when the honorums are all 
spent. But what, are you puzzling in your pockets to seek 
your only memorial among old play-biUs, letters requesting 


14 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


a meeting of the faculty, rules of the Speculative Society,* 
syllabus of lectures — all the miscellaneous contents of a young 
advocate’s pocket, which contains everything but briefs and 
bank-notes? Can you not state a case of cessio without your 
memorial ? Why, it is done every Saturday. The events follow 
each other as regularly as clock-work, and one form of con- 
descendence might suit every one of them.’ 

‘ This is very unlike the variety of distress which this gentle- 
man stated to fall under the consideration of your judges,’ 
said I. 

‘ True,’ replied Halkit ; ‘ but Hardie spoke of criminal juris- 
prudence, and this business is purely civil. I could plead a 
cessio myself without the inspiring honours of a gown and 
three-tailed periwig. Listen. My client w^as bred a journeyman 
\veaver — made some little money — took a farm — (for con- 
ducting a farm, like driving a gig, comes by nature) — late 
severe times — induced to sign bills with a friend, for which he 
received no value — landlord sequestrates — creditors accept a 
composition — pursuer sets up a public-house — fails a second 
time — is incarcerated for a debt of ten pounds, seven shillings 
and sixpence — his debts amount to blank — his losses to blank 
— his funds to blank — leaving a balance of blank in his favour. 
There is no opposition ; your lordships wdll please grant com- 
mission to take his oath.’ 

Hardie now renounced his ineffectual search, in which there 
was perhaps a little affectation, and told us the tale of poor 
Dunover’s distresses, with a tone in which a degree of feel- 
ing, which he seemed ashamed of as unprofessional, mingled 
with his attempts at wit, and did him more honour. It was 
one of those tales which seem to argue a sort of ill-luck or 
fatality attached to the hero. A well-informed, industrious, 
and blameless, but poor and bashful, man had in vain essayed 
all the usual means by which others acquire independence, yet 
had never succeeded beyond the attainment of bare subsistence. 
During a brief gleam of hope, rather than of actual prosperity, 
he had added a wife and family to his cares, but the dawn was 
speedily overcast. Everything retrograded with him towards 
the verge of the miry Slough of Despond, which yawns for 
insolvent debtors ; and after catching at each twig, and experi- 
encing the protracted agony of feeling them one by one elude 
his grasp, he actually sunk into the miry pit whence he had 
been extricated by the professional exertions of Hardie. 

* A well-kuowu debating club in Edinburgh {Lainy). 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


15 


‘And, I su])pose, now you have dragged this poor devil 
ashore, you will leave him half naked on the beach to provide 
for himself ? ’ said Halkit. ‘ Hark ye,’ and he whispered some- 
thing in his ear, of which the penetrating and insinuating 
words, ‘ Interest with my lord,’ alone reached mine. 

‘ It is pessimi exempli, said Hardie, laughing, ‘ to provide 
for a ruined client ; but I was thinking of what you mention, 
provided it can be managed. But hush ! here he comes.’ 

The recent relation of the poor man’s misfortunes had given 
him, I was pleased to observe, a claim to the attention and 
respect of the young men, who treated him with great civility, 
and gradually engaged him in a conversation, which, much to 
my satisfaction, again turned upon the causes cdehres of 
Scotland. Emboldened by the kindness with which he was 
treated, Mr. Dunover began to contribute his share to the 
amusement of the evening. Jails, like other places, have their 
ancient traditions, known only to the inhabitants, and handed 
down from one set of the melancholy lodgers to the next who 
occupy their cells. Some of these, which Dunover mentioned, 
were interesting, and served to illustrate the narratives of 
remarkable trials which Hardie had at his finger-ends, and 
which his companion was also well skilled in. This sort of 
conversation passed away the evening till the early hour when 
Mr. Dunover chose to retire to rest, and I also retreated to 
take down memorandums of what I had learned, in order to 
add another narrative to those which it had been my chief 
amusement to collect, and to write out in detail. The two 
young men ordered a broiled bone, Madeira negus, and a pack 
of cards, and commenced a game at picquet. 

Next morning the travellers left Gandercleugh. I after- 
wards learned from the papers that both have been since 
engaged in the great political cause of Bubbleburgh and Bitem, 
a summary case, and entitled to particiilar despatch; but 
which, it is thought, nevertheless, may outlast the duration of 
the parliament to which the contest refers. Mr. Halkit, as the 
newspapers informed me, acts as agent or solicitor; and Mr. 
Hardie opened for Sir Peter Plyem with singular ability, and 
to such good purpose, that I understand he has since had 
fewer play-bills and more briefs in his pocket. And both the 
young gentlemen deserve their good fortune; for I learned 
from Dunover, who called on me some weeks afterwards, and 
communicated the intelligence with tears in his eyes, that 
their interest had availed to obtain him a small office for the 


16 WAVERLEY NOVELS - I 

decent maintenance of his family; and that, after a train of 
constant and uninterrupted misfortune, he could trace a dawn 
of prosperity to his having the good fortune to be flung from 
the top of a mail-coach into the river Gander, in company with 
an advocate and a writer to the signet. The reader will not 
perhaps deem himself equally obliged to the accident, since it 
brings upon him the following narrative, founded upon the 
conversation of the evening. 


CHAPTER II 


Wlioe’er's been at Paris must needs know the Greve, 

The fatal retreat of the unfortunate brave, 

Where honour and justice most oddly contribute, 

To ease heroes’ pains by an halter and gibbet. 

There death breaks the shackles which force had put on. 

And the hangman completes what the judge but began ; 

There the squire of the pad, and knight of the 'post. 

Find their pains no more baulk’d, and their hopes no more cross’d. 

Prior. 

In former times, England had her Tyburn, to which the 
devoted victims of justice were conducted in solemn procession 
up what is now called Oxford Road. In Edinburgh, a large 
open street, or rather oblong square, surrounded by high 
houses, called the Grassmarket, was used for the same melan- 
choly purpose. It was not ill chosen for such a scene, being 
of considerable extent, and therefore fit to accommodate a great 
number of spectators, such as are usually assembled by this 
melancholy spectacle. On the other hand, few of the houses 
which surround it were, even in early times, inhabited by 
persons of fashion ; so that those likely to be offended or over 
deeply affected by such unpleasant exhibitions were not in the 
way of having their quiet disturbed by them. The houses in 
the Grassmarket are, generally speaking, of a mean description ; 
yet the place is not without some features of grandeur, being 
overhung by the southern side of the huge rock on which the 
castle stands, and by the moss-grown battlements and turreted 
walls of that ancient fortress. 

It was the custom, until within these thirty years or there- 
abouts, to use this esplanade for the scene of public executions. 
The fatal day was announced to the public by the appearance 
of a huge black gallows-tree towards the eastern end of the 
Grassmarket. This ill-omened apparition was of great height, 
with a scaffold surrounding it, and a double ladder placed 


VII 


2 


18 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


against it, for the ascent of the unhappy criminal and the 
executioner. As this apparatus was always arranged before 
dawn, it seemed as if the gallows had grown out of the earth ! 
■in the course of one night, like the production of some foul j 
demon ; and I well remember the fright with which the school- 
boys, when I was one of their number, used to regard these ! 
ominous signs of deadly preparation. On the night after the i 
execution the gallows again disappeared, and was conveyed in ; 
silence and darkness to the place where it was usually deposited, ' 
which was one of the vaults under the Parliament House, or ! 
courts of justice. This mode of execution is now exchanged ( 
for one similar to that in front of Newgate, with what 
beneficial effect is uncertain. The mental sufferings of the \ 
convict are indeed shortened. He no longer stalks between f 
the attendant clergymen, dressed in his grave-clothes, through j 
a considerable part of the city, looking like a moving and f 
walking corpse, while yet an inhabitant of this world ; but, as ! 
the ultimate purpose of punishment has in view the prevention | 
of crimes, it may at least be doubted whether, in abridging 
the melancholy ceremony, we have not in part diminished that 
appalling effect upon the spectators which is the useful end of 
all such inflictions, and in consideration of which alone, unless 
in very particular cases, capital sentences can be altogether 
justified. 

On the 7th day of September 1736 these ominous prepar- j 
ations for execution were descried in the place we have | 
described, and at an early hour the space around began to be j 
occupied by several groups, who gazed on the scaffold and ( 
gibbet with a stern and vindictive show of satisfaction very | 
seldom testified by the populace, whose good -nature in most \ 
cases forgets the crime of the condemned person, and dwells i 
only on his misery. But the act of which the expected culprit ! 
had been convicted was of a description calculated nearly and 
closely to awaken and irritate the resentful feelings of the i 
multitude. The tale is well known ; yet it is necessary to 
recapitulate its leading circumstances, for the better under- 
standing what is to follow ; and the narrative may prove long, 
but I trust not uninteresting, even to those who have heard 
its general issue. At any rate, some detail is necessary, in 
order to render intelligiWe the subsequent events of our 
naiTative. 

Contraband trade, though it strikes at the root of legitimate 
government, by encroaching on its revenues, though it injures 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


19 


the fair trader, and debauches the minds of those engaged in 
it, is not usually looked upon, either by the vulgar or by their 
betters, in a very heinous point of view. On the contrary, 
in those counties where it prevails, the cleverest, boldest, and 
most intelligent of the peasantry are uniformly engaged in 
illicit transactions, and very often with the sanction of the 
farmers and inferior gentry. Smuggling was almost universal 
ill Scotland in the reigns of George I. and II. ; for the people, 
unaccustomed to imposts, and regarding them as an unjust 
aggression upon their ancient liberties, made no scruple to 
elude them whenever it was possible to do so. 

The county of Fife, bounded by two firths on the south and * 
north, and by the sea on the east, and having a number of 
small seaports, was long famed for maintaining successfully a 
contraband trade ; and as there were many seafaring men re- 
siding there, who had been pirates and buccaneers in their 
youth, there were not wanting a sufficient number of daring 
men to caiTy it on. Among these, a fellow called Andrew 
Wilson, originally a baker in the village of Pathhead, was par- 
ticularly obnoxious to the revenue officers. He was possessed 
of great personal strength, courage, and cunning, was per- 
fectly acquainted with the coast, and capable of conducting the 
most desperate enterprises. On several occasions he succeeded 
in baffling the pursuit and researches of the king’s officers ; but 
he became so much the object of their suspicions and watchful 
attention that at length he was totally ruined by repeated 
seizures. The man became desperate. He considered himself 
as robbed and plundered, and took it into his head that he 
had a right to make reprisals, as he could find opportunity. 
Where the heart is prepared for evil, opportunity is seldom long 
wahting. This Wilson learned that the collector of the customs 
at Kirkcaldy had come to Pittenweem, in the course of his official 
round of duty, with a considerable sum of public money in his 
custody. As the amount was greatly within the value of the 
goods which had been seized from him, Wilson felt no scruple 
of conscience in resolving to reimburse himself for his losses at 
the expense of the collector and the revenue. He associated 
with himself one Robertson and two other idle young men, 
whom, having been concerned in the same illicit trade, he 
persu^ed to view the transaction in the same justifiable light 
in which he himself considered it. They watched the motions 
of the collector; they broke forcibly into the house where 
he lodged, Wilson, with two of his associates, entering the 


20 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


collector’s apartment, while Robertson, the fourth, kept watch 
at the door with a drawn cutlass in his hand. The officer of 
the customs, conceiving his life in danger, escaped out of his 
bedroom window, and fled in his shirt, so that the plunderers, 
with much ease, possessed themselves of about two hundred 
pounds of public money. This robbery was committed in a 
very audacious manner, for several persons ’were passing in the 
street at the time. But Robertson, representing the noise they 
heard as a dispute or fray betwixt the collector and the people 
of the house, the worthy citizens of Pittenweem felt themselves 
no way called on to interfere in behalf of the obnoxious revenue 
officer; so, satisfying themselves with this very superficial 
account of the matter, like the Levite in the parable, they 
passed on the opposite side of the way. An alarm was at 
length given, military were called in, the depredators were pur- 
sued, the booty recovered, and Wilson and Robertson tried and 
condemned to death, chiefly on the evidence of an accomplice. 

Many thought that, in consideration of the men’s erroneous 
opinion of the nature of the action they had committed, justice 
might have been satisfied with a less forfeiture than that of 
two lives. On the other hand, from the audacity of the fact, 
a severe example was judged necessary; and such was the 
opinion of the government. When it became apparent that the 
sentence of death was to be executed, files, and other imple- 
ments necessary for their escape, were transmitted secretly to 
the culprits by a friend from without. By these means they 
sawed a bar out of one of the prison windows, and might have 
made their escape, but for the obstinacy of Wilson, who, as he 
was daringly resolute, was doggedly pertinacious of his opinion. 
His comrade, Robertson, a young and slender man, proposed to 
make the experiment of passing the foremost through the gap 
they had made, and enlarging it from the outside, if necessary, 
to allow Wilson free passage. Wilson, however, insisted on 
making the first experiment, and being a robust and lusty man, 
he not only found it impossible to get through betwixt the bars, 
but, by his struggles, he jammed himself so fast that he was 
unable to draw his body back again. In these circumstances 
discovery became unavoidable ; and sufficient precautions were 
taken by the jailor to prevent any repetition of the same at- 
tempt. Robertson uttered not a word of reflection on his com- 
panion for the consequences of his obstinacy ; but it appeared 
from the sequel that Wilson’s mind was deeply impressed with 
the recollection that, but for him, his comrade, over whose mind 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


21 


he exercised considerable, influence, would not have engaged in 
; the criminal enterprise which had terminated thus fatally ; and 
! that now he had become his destroyer a second time, since, but 
for his obstinacy, Robertson might have effected his escape. 
Minds like Wilson’s, even when exercised in evil practices, 

I sometimes retain the power of thinking and resolving with 
enthusiastic generosity. His whole thoughts were now bent 
on the possibility of saving Robertson’s life, without the least 
respect to his own. The resolution which he adopted, and the 
manner in which he carried it into effect, were striking and 
unusual. 

Adjacent to the tolbooth or city jail of Edinburgh is one of 
three churches into which the cathedral of St. Giles is now 
divided, called, from its vicinity, the Tolbooth Church. It 
was the custom that criminals under sentence of death w^ere 
brought to this church, with a sufficient guard, to hear and join 
in public worship on the Sabbath before execution. It was 
I supposed that the hearts of these unfortunate persons, however 
hardened before against feelings of devotion, could not but be 
accessible to them upon uniting their thoughts and voices, for 
the last time, along with their fellow-mortals, in addressing 
their Creator. And to the rest of the congregation it was 
thought it could not but be impressive and affecting to find 
their devotions mingling with those who, sent by the doom of 
an earthly tribunal to appear where the whole earth is judged, 
might be considered as beings trembling on the verge of eternity. 
The practice, however edifying, has been discontinued, in con- 
sequence of the incident we are about to detail. 

The clergyman whose duty it was to officiate in the Tol- 
booth Church had concluded an affecting discourse, part of 
which was particularly directed to the unfortunate men, Wilson 
and Robertson, who were in the pew set apart for the persons 
in their unhappy situation, each secured betwixt two soldiers of 
the City Guard. The clergyman had reminded them that the 
next congregation they must join would be that of the just or 
of the unjust ; that the psalms they now heard must be ex- 
changed, in the space of two brief days, for eternal hallelujahs 
: or eternal lamentations ; and that this fearful alternative must 
depend upon the state to which they might be able to bring 
their minds before the moment of awful preparation ; that they 
I should not despair on account of the suddenness of the summons, 
but rather to feel this comfort in their misery, that, though all 
who now lifted the voice, or bent the knee, in conjunction with 


22 


waverley Novels 


them lay under the same sentence of certain death, they only 
had the advantage of knowing the precise moment at which it i 
should be executed upon them. ‘ Therefore,’ urged the good i 
man, his voice trembling with emotion, ‘ redeem the time, my , 
unhappy brethren, which is yet left ; and remember that, with ! 
the grace of Him to whom space and time are but as nothing, I 
salvation may yet be assured, even in the pittance of delay j 
which the laws of your country afford you.’ 

Robertson was observed to weep at these words ; but Wil- 
son seemed as one whose brain had not entirely received their 
meaning, or whose thoughts were deeply impressed with some 
different subject ; an expression so natural to a person in his 
situation that it excited neither suspicion nor surprise. 

The benediction was pronounced as usual, and the congrega- 
tion was dismissed, many lingering to indulge their curiosity 
with a more fixed look at the two criminals, who now, as well 
as their guards, rose up, as if to depart when the crowd should 
permit them. A murmur of compassion was heard to pervade 
the spectators, the more general, perhaps, on account of the 
alleviating circumstances of the case ; when all at once, Wilson, 
who, as we have already noticed, was a very strong man, seized 
two of the soldiers, one with each hand, and calling at the same ; 
time to his companion, ‘ Run, Geordie, run ! ’ threw himself on i 
a third, and fastened his teeth on the collar of his coat. Robert- 
son stood for a second as if thunderstruck, and unable to avail I 
himself of the opportunity of escape ; but the cry of ‘ Run, run ! ’ 
being echoed from many around, whose feelings surprised them i 
into a very natural interest in his behalf, he shook off the grasp i 
of the remaining soldier, threw himself over the pew, mixed 
with the dispersing congregation, none of whom felt inclined to 
stop a poor wretch taking this last chance for his life, gained 
the door of the church, and was lost to all pursuit. 

The generous intrepidity which Wilson had displayed on 
this occasion augmented the feeling of compassion which at- 
tended his fate. The public, where their own prejudices are 
not concerned being easily engaged on the side of disinterested- 
ness and humanity, admired Wilson’s behaviour, and rejoiced 
in Robertson’s escape. This general feeling was so great that 
it excited a vague report that Wilson would be rescued at the 
place of execution, either by the mob or by some of his old asso- 
ciates, or by some second extraordinary and unexpected exer- 
tion of strength and courage on his own part. The magistrates 
thought it their duty to provide against the possibility of dis- 


HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


23 


turbance. They ordered, out, for protection of the execution of 
the sentence, the greater part of their own City Guard, under 
the command of Captain Porteous, a man whose name became 
too memorable from the melancholy circumstances of the day 
and subsequent events. It may be necessary to say a word 
about this person and the corps which he commanded. But 
the subject is of importance sufficient to deserve another 
chapter. 


CHAPTER III 


And thou, great god of aqua-vitae i 
Wha sways the empire of this city, 

(When fou we’re sometimes capernoity), 

Be thou prepared. 

To save us frae that black banditti. 

The City Guard ! 

Fekguson’s Daft Days. 

Captain John Porteous, a name memorable in the traditions 
of Edinburgh, as well as in the records of criminal jurisprudence, 
was the son of a citizen of Edinburgh, who endeavoured to 
breed him up to his own mechanical trade of a tailor. The 
youth, however, had a wild and irreclaimable propensity to dis- 
sipation, which finally sent him to serve in the corps long main- 
tained in the service of the States of Holland, and called the 
Scotch Dutch. Here he learned military discipline ; and re- 
turning afterwards, in the course of an idle and wandering life, 
to his native city, his services were required by the magistrates - 
of Edinburgh, in the disturbed year 1715, for disciplining their 
City Guard, in which he shortly afterwards received a captain’s 
commission. It was only by his military skill, and an alert and 
resolute character as an officer of police, that he merited this 
promotion, for he is said to have been a man of profligate 
habits, an unnatural son, and a brutal husband. He was, 
however, useful in his station, and his harsh and fierce habits 
rendered him formidable to rioters or disturbers of the public 
peace. 

The corps in which he held his command is, or perhaps v/e 
should rather say was, a body of about one hundred and twenty 
soldiers, divided into three companies, and regularly armed, 
clothed, and embodied. They were chiefly veterans who enlisted 
in this corps, having the benefit of working at their trades when 
they were off duty. These men had the charge of preserving 
public order, repressing riots and street robberies, acting, in 
short, as an armed police, and attending on all public occasions 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


25 


where confusion or popular disturbance might be expected.* 
Poor Ferguson, whose irregularities sometimes led him into 
unpleasant rencontres with these military conservators of public 
order, and who mentions them so often that he may be termed 
their poet laureate, thus admonishes his readers, warned doubt- 
less by his own experience : 

Glide folk, as ye come frae the fair, 

Bide yont frae this black squad ; 

There’s nae sic savages elsewhere 
Allow’d to wear cockad. 

In fact, the soldiers of the City Guard, being, as we have 
said, in general discharged veterans, who had strength enough 
remaining for this municipal duty, and being, moreover, for the 
greater part. Highlanders, were neither by birth, education, or 
former habits trained to endure with much patience the insults 
of the rabble, or the provoking petulance of truant schoolboys, 
and idle debauchees of all descriptions, with whom their occupa- 
tion brought them into contact. On the contrary, the tempers 
of the poor old fellows were soured by the indignities with 
which the mob distinguished them on many occasions, and 
frequently might have required the soothing strains of the poet 
we have just quoted — 

0 soldiers ! for your ain dear sakes. 

For Scotland’s love, the Land o’ Cakes, 

Gie not her bairns sic deadW paiks. 

Nor be sae rude, 

Wi’ firelock or Lochaber axe. 

As spill their bluid ! 

On all occasions when a holiday licensed some riot and 
irregularity, a skirmish with these veterans was a favourite 
recreation with the rabble of Edinburgh. These pages may 
perhaps see the light when many have in fresh recollection 
such onsets as we allude to. But the venerable corps with 
whom the contention w^as held may now be considered as 
totally extinct. Of late the gradual diminution of these- civic 
soldiers reminds one of the abatement of King Lear’s hundred 
knights. The edicts of each succeeding set of magistrates have, 
like those of Goneril and Regan, diminished this venerable band 
with the similar question, ‘ What need we five and twenty ? — 
ten? — or five?’ And it is now nearly come to, ‘What need 
one ? ’ A spectre may indeed here and there still be seen, of 

* See Edinburgh City Guard. Note 3. 


26 


WAVEtlLEY NOVELL 


an old grey-headed and grey -bearded Highlander, with war- 
worn features, but bent double by age ; dressed in an old- 
fashioned cocked hat, bound with white tape instead of silver 
lace, and in coat, waistcoat, and breeches of a muddy-coloured 
red, bearing in his withered hand an ancient w'eapon, called a 
Lochaber axe, a long pole, namely, with an axe at the extremity 
and a hook at the back of the hatchet.* Such a phantom 
of former days still creeps, I have been informed, round the 
statue of Charles the Second, in the Parliament Square, as if 
the image of a Stuart were the last refuge for any memorial 
of our ancient manners; and one or tAVO others are supposed 
to glide around the door of the guard-house assigned to them 
in the Luckenbooths when their ancient refuge in the High 
Street was laid low.f But the fate of manuscripts bequeathed 
to friends and executors is so uncertain, that the narrative 
containing these frail memorials of the old Town Guard of 
Edinburgh, who, with their grim and valiant coi’poral, John 
Dhu, the fiercest -looking fellow I ever saw, were, in my boy- 
hood, the alternate terror and derision of the petulant brood of 
the High School, may, perhaps, only come to light wdien all 
memory of the institution has faded away, and then serve 
as an illustration of Kay’s caricatures, Avho has preserved the 
features of some of their heroes. In the preceding generation, 
Avhen there was a perpetual alarm for the plots and activity 
of the Jacobites, some pains Avere taken by the magistrates 
of Edinburgh to keep this corps, though composed ahvays 
of such materials as Ave have noticed, in a more effective state 
than was afterwards judged necessary, when their most danger- 
ous service Avas to skirmish Avith the rabble on the king’s birth- 
day. They Avere, therefore, more the objects of hatred, and less 
that of scorn, than they were afterAvards accounted. 

To Captain John Porteous the honour of his command and 
of his corps seems to have been a matter of high interest and 
importance. He was exceedingly incensed against Wilson for 
the affront Avhich he construed him to have put upon his 
soldiers, in the effort he made for the liberation of his com- 
panion, and expressed himself most ardently on the subject. 
He was no less indignant at the report that there Avas an 
intention to rescue Wilson himself from the gallows, and 
uttered many threats and imprecations upon that subject. 


* This hook was to enable the bearer of the Ijochaber axe to scale a gateway, by 
grappling the top of the door and swinging himself up by the staff of his weapon. 

.t See Last March of the City Guard. Note 4. 


THE HEART OE MIDLOTHIAN 


27 


which were afterwards remembered to his disadvantage. In 
fact, if a good deal of determination and promptitude rendered 
Porteous, in one respect, fit to command guards designed to 
suppress popular commotion, he seems, on the other, to have 
been disqualified for a charge so delicate by a hot and surly 
temper, always too ready to come to blows and violence, a 
character void of principle, and a disposition to regard the 
rabble, who seldom failed to regale him and his soldiers with 
some marks of their displeasure, as declared enemies, upon 
whom it was natural and justifiable that he should seek 
opportunities of vengeance. Being, however, the most active 
and trustworthy among the captains of the City Guard, he was 
the person to whom the magistrates confided the command of 
the soldiers appointed to keep the peace at the time of Wilson’s 
execution. He was ordered to guard the gallows and scaffold, 
with about eighty men, all the disposable force that could be 
spared for that duty. 

But the magistrates took farther precautions, which affected 
Porteous’s pride very deeply. They requested the assistance 
of part of a regular infantry regiment, not to attend upon the 
execution, but to remain drawn up on the principal street of 
the city, during the time that it went forward, in order to 
intimidate the multitude, in case they should be disposed to 
be unruly, with a display of force which could not be resisted 
without desperation. It may sound ridiculous in our ears, 
considering the fallen state of this ancient civic corps, that 
its officer should have felt punctiliously jealous of its honour. 
Yet so it was. Captain Porteous resented as an indignity the 
introducing the Welsh Fusileers within the city, and drawing 
them up in the street where no drums but his own were allowed 
to be sounded without the special command or permission of 
the magistrates. As he could not show his ill-humour to his 
patrons themagistmtes, it increased his indignation and his desire 
to be revenged on the unfortunate criminal Wilson, and all who 
favoured him. These internal emotions of jealousy and rage 
wrought a change on the man’s mien and bearing, visible to all 
who saw him on the fatal morning when Wilson was appointed 
to suffer. Porteous’s ordinary appearance was rather favourable. 
He was about the middle size, stout, and well made, having a 
military air, and yet rather a gentle and mild countenance. 
His complexion was brown, his face somewhat fretted with 
the scars of the small-pox, his eyes rather languid than keen 
or fierce. On the present occasion, however, it seemed to those 


28 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


who saw him as if he were agitated by some evil demon. His 
step was irregular, his voice hollow and broken, his countenance 
pale, his eyes staring and wild, his speech imperfect and confused, 
and his whole appearance so disordered that many remarked he 
seemed to be ‘ fey,’ a Scottish expression, meaning the state of 
those who are driven on to their impending fate by the strong 
impulse of some irresistible necessity. 

One part of his conduct was truly diabolical, if, indeed, it 
has not been exaggerated by the general prejudice entertained 
against his memory. When Wilson, the unhappy criminal, was 
delivered to him by the keeper of the prison, in order that he 
might be conducted to the place of execution, Porteous, not 
satisfied with the usual precautions to prevent escape, ordered 
him to be manacled. This might be justifiable from the char- 
acter and bodily strength of the malefactor, as well as from the 
apprehensions so generally entertained of an expected rescue. 
But the handcuffs which were produced being found too small for 
the wrists of a man so big-boned as Wilson, Porteous proceeded 
with his own hands, and by great exertion of strength, to force 
them till they clasped together, to the exquisite torture of the 
unhappy criminal. Wilson remonstrated against such barbarous 
usage, declaring that the pain distracted his thoughts from the 
subjects of meditation proper to his unhappy condition. 

‘It signifies little,’ replied Captain Porteous; ‘your pain 
will be soon at an end.’ 

‘ Your cruelty is great,’ answered the sufferer. ‘ You know 
not how soon you yourself may have occasion to ask the mercy 
which you are now refusing to a fellow-creature. May God 
forgive you ! ’ 

These words, long afterwards quoted and remembered, were 
all that passed between Porteous and his prisoner; but as they 
took air and became known to the people, they greatly increased 
the popular compassion for Wilson, and excited a proportionate 
degree of indignation against Porteous, against whom, as strict, 
and even violent, in the discharge of his unpopular office, the 
common people had some real, and many imaginary, causes of 
complaint. 

When the painful procession was completed, and Wilson, 
with the escort, had arrived at the scaffold in the Grassmarket, 
there appeared no signs of that attempt to rescue him which 
had occasioned such precautions. The multitude, in general, 
looked on with deeper interest than at ordinary executions ; 
and there might be seen on the countenances of many a stern 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


29 


and indignant expression, like that with which the ancient 
Cameronians might be supposed to witness the execution of 
their brethren, who glorified the Covenant on the same occasion, 
and at the same spot. But there was no attempt at violence. 
Wilson himself seemed disposed to hasten over the space that 
divided time from eternity. The devotions proper and usual 
on such occasions were no sooner finished than he submitted to 
his fate, and the sentence of the laAv was fulfilled. 

He had been suspended on the gibbet so long as to be 
totally deprived of life, when at once, as if occasioned by some 
newly-received impulse, there arose a tumult among the multi- 
tude. Many stones were thrown at Porteous and his guards ; 
some mischief was done ; and the mob continued to press 
forward with whoops, shrieks, howls, and exclamations. A 
young fellow, with a sailor’s cap slouched over his face, sprung 
on the scaffold and cut the rope by which the criminal was 
suspended. Others approached to carry off the body, either to 
secure for it a decent grave, or to try, perhaps, some means of 
resuscitation. Captain Porteous was wrought, by this appear- 
ance of insurrection against his authority, into a rage so 
headlong as made him forget that, the sentence having been 
fully executed, it was his duty not to engage in hostilities with 
the misguided multitude, but to draw off his men as fast as 
possible. He sprung from the scaffold, snatched a musket from 
one of his soldiers, commanded the party to give fire, and, as 
several eye-witnesses concurred in swearing, set them the ex- 
ample by discharging his piece and shooting a man dead on 
the spot. Several soldiers obeyed his command or followed his 
example ; six or seven persons were slain, and a great many 
were hurt and wounded. 

After this act of violence, the Captain proceeded to withdraw 
his men towards their guard-house in the High Street. The 
mob were not so much intimidated as incensed by what had 
been done. They pursued the soldiers with execrations, accom- 
panied by volleys of stones. As they pressed on them, the 
rearmost soldiers turned and again fired with fatal aim and 
execution. It is not accurately known whether Porteous 
commanded this second act of violence j but of course the 
odium of the whole transactions of the fatal day attached to 
him, and to him alone. He arrived at the guard -house, 
dismissed his soldiers, and went to make his report to the 
magistrates concerning the unfortunate events of the day. 

Apparently by this time Captain Porteous had begun to 


30 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


doubt the propriety of his own conduct, and the reception he 
met with from the magistrates was such as to make him still 
more anxious to gloss it over. He denied that he had given 
orders to fire ; he denied he had fired with his own hand ; he 
even produced the fusee which he carried as an officer for 
examination : it was found still loaded. Of three cartridges 
which he was seen to put in his pouch that morning, two were 
still there ; a white handkerchief was thrust into the muzzle of 
the piece, and returned unsoiled or blackened. To the defence 
founded on these circumstances it was answered, that Porteous 
had not used his own piece, but had been seen to take one from 
a soldier. Among the many who had been killed and wounded 
by the unhappy fire, there were several of better rank ; for 
even the humanity of such soldiers as fired over the heads of 
the mere rabble around the scaffold, proved in some instances 
fatal to persons who were stationed in windows, or observed 
the melancholy scene from a distance. The voice of public 
indignation was loud and general ; and, ere men’s tempers had 
time to cool, the trial of Captain Porteous took j)lace before 
the High Court of Justiciary. After a long and patient 
hearing, the jury had the difficult duty of balancing the 
positive evidence of many persons, and those of respectability, 
who deposed positively to the prisoner’s commanding his 
soldiers to fire, and himself firing his piece, of which some 
swore that they saw the smoke and flash, and beheld a man 
drop at whom it was pointed, with the negative testimony of 
others, who, though well stationed for seeing what had passed, 
neither heard Porteous give orders to fire, nor saw him fire 
himself ; but, on the contrary, averred that the first shot was 
fired by a soldier who stood close by him. A great part of his 
defence was also founded on the turbulence of the mob, which 
witnesses, according to their feelings, their predilections, and 
their opportunities of observation, represented differently ; 
some describing as a formidable riot what others represented 
as a trifling disturbance, such as always used to take place on 
the like occasions, when the executioner of the law and the 
men commissioned to protect him in his task were generally 
exposed to some indignities. The verdict of the jury sufficiently 
shows how the evidence preponderated in their minds. It 
declared that John Porteous fired a gun among the people 
assembled at the execution ; that he gave orders to his soldiers 
to fire, by which many persons were killed and woimded ; but, 
at the same time, that the prisoner and his guard had been 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


31 


wounded and beaten by stones thrown at them by the multi- 
tude. Upon this verdict, the Lords of Justiciary passed 
sentence of death against Captain John Porteous, adjudging 
him, in the common form, to be hanged on a gibbet at the 
common place of execution, on Wednesday, 8th September- 
1736, and all his movable property to be forfeited to the king’s 
use, according to the Scottish law in cases of wilful murder. 


CHAPTER IV 


i; 


The hour’s come, but not the man.* 

Kelpie. 


•i 

1 


On the day when the unhappy Porteous was expected to suffer 
the sentence of the law, the place of execution, extensive as it 
is, was crowded almost to suffocation. There was not a window 
in all the lofty tenements around it, or in the steep and crooked 
street called the Bow, by which the fatal procession was to 
descend from the High Street, that was not absolutely filled with 
spectators. The uncommon height and antique appearance of 
these houses, some of which were formerly the property of the 
Knights Templars and the Knights of St. John, and still exhibit 
on their fronts and gables the iron cross of these orders, gave 
additional effect to a scene in itself so striking. The area of 
the Grassmarket resembled a huge dark lake or sea of human 
heads, in the centre of which arose the fatal tree, tall, black, 
and ominous, from which dangled the deadly halter. Every 
object takes interest from its uses and associations, and the 
erect beam and empty noose, things so simple in themselves, 
became, on such an occasion, objects of terror and of solemn 
interest. 

Amid so numerous an assembly there was scarcely a word 
spoken, save in whispers. The thirst of vengeance was in some 
degree allayed by its supposed certainty; and even the populace, 
with deeper feeling than they are wont to entertain, suppressed 
all clamorous exultation, and prepared to enjoy the scene of 
retaliation in triumph, silent and decent, though stern and 
relentless. It seemed as if the depth of their hatred to the 
unfortunate criminal scorned to display itself in anything 
resembling the more noisy current of their ordinary feelings. 
Had a stranger consulted only the evidence of his ears, he 
might have supposed that so vast a multitude were assembled 


i 

I 

! 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


33 


for some purpose which affected them with the deepest sorrow, 
and stilled those noises which, on all ordinary occasions, arise 
from such a concourse ; but if 'he gazed upon their faces he 
would have been instantly undeceived. The compressed lip, 
the bent brow, the stern and flashing eye of almost every one 
on whom he looked, conveyed the expression of men come to 
glut their sight with triumphant revenge. It is probable that 
the appearance of the criminal might have somewhat changed 
the temper of the populace in his favour, and that they might 
in the moment of death have forgiven the man against whom 
their resentment had been so fiercely heated. It had, however, 
been destined that the mutability of their sentiments was not 
to be exposed to this trial. 

The usual hour for producing the criminal had been past for 
many minutes, yet the spectators observed no symptom of his 
appearance. ‘Would they venture to defraud public justice?’ 
was the question which men began anxiously to ask at each 
other. The first answer in every case was bold and positive — 
‘ They dare not.’ But when the point was further canvassed, 
other opinions were entertained, and various causes of doubt 
were suggested. Porteous had been a favourite officer of the 
magistracy of the city, which, being a numerous and fluctu- 
ating body, requires for its support a degree of energy in its 
functionaries which the individuals who compose it cannot at 
all times alike be supposed to possess in their own persons. It 
was remembered that in the information for Porteous (the 
paper, namely, in which his case was stated to the judges of 
the criminal court), he had been described by his counsel as the 
person on whom the magistrates chiefly relied in all emergencies 
of uncommon difficulty. It was argued, too, that his conduct, 
on the unhappy occasion of Wilson’s execution, was capable of 
being attributed to an imprudent excess of zeal in the execution 
of his duty, a motive for which those under whose authority he 
acted might be supposed to have great sympathy. And as 
these considerations might move the magistrates to make a 
favourable representation of Porteous’s case, there were not 
wanting others in the higher departments of government which 
would make such suggestions favourably listened to. 

The mob of Edinburgh, when thoroughly excited, had been 
at all times one of the fiercest which could be found in Europe ; 
and of late years they had risen repeatedly against the govern- 
ment, and sometimes not without temporary success. They 
were conscious, therefore, that they were no favourites with the 


VII 


34 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


rulers of the period, and that, if Captain Porteous’s violence 
was not altogether regarded as good service, it might certainly 
be thought that to visit it with a capital punishment would 
render it both delicate and dangerous for future officers, in the 
same circumstances, to act with effect in repressing tumults. 
There is also a natural feeling, on the part of all members of 
government, for the general maintenance of authority ; and it 
seemed not unlikely that what to the relatives of the sufferers 
appeared a wanton and unprovoked massacre, should be other- 
wise viewed in the cabinet of St James’s. It might be there 
supposed that, upon the whole matter. Captain Porteous was 
in the exercise of a trust delegated to him by the lawful civil 
authority ; that he had been assaulted by the populace, and 
several of his men hurt ; and that, in finally repelling force by 
force, his conduct could be fairly imputed to no other motive 
than self-defence in the discharge of his duty. 

These considerations, of themselves very powerful, induced 
the spectators to apprehend the possibility of a reprieve ; and 
to the various causes which might interest the rulers in his 
favour the lower part of the rabble added one which was 
peculiarly well adapted to their comprehension. It was averredj 
in order to increase the odium against Porteous, that, while he 
repressed with the utmost severity the slightest excesses of the 
poor, he not only overlooked the license of the young nobles and 
gentry, but was very willing to lend them the countenance of 
his official authority in execution of such loose pranks as it 
was chiefly his duty to have restrained. This suspicion, which 
was perhaps much exaggerated, made a deep impression on the 
minds of the populace ; and when several of the higher rank 
joined in a petition recommending Porteous to the mercy of 
the crown, it was generally supposed he owed their favour not 
to any conviction of the hardship of his case, but to the fear of 
losing a convenient accomplice in their debaucheries. It is 
scarcely necessary to say how much this suspicion augmented 
the people’s detestation of this obnoxious criminal, as w^ell as 
their fear of his escaping the sentence pronounced against him. 

While these arguments were stated and replied to, and 
canvassed and supported, the hitherto silent expectation of the 
people became changed into that deep and agitating murmur 
which is sent forth by the ocean before the tempest begins to 
howl. The crowded populace, as if their motions had corre- 
sponded with the unsettled state of their minds, fluctuated to 
and fro without any visible cause of impulse, like the agitation of 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


35 


I the waters called by sailors the ground-swell. The news, which 
I the magistrates had almost hesitated to communicate to them, 

! were at length announced, and spread among the spectators with 
, ' a rapidity like lightning. A reprieve from the Secretary of State’s 
office, under the hand of his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, had 
arrived, intimating the pleasure of Queen Caroline (regent of the 
kingdom during the absence of George II. on the Continent), that 
the execution of the sentence of death pronounced against John 
Porteous, late Captain-Lieutenant of the City Guard of Edin- 
burgh, present prisoner in the tolbooth of that city, be respited 
for six weeks from the time appointed for his execution. 

The assembled spectators of almost all degrees, whose minds 
had been wound up to the pitch which we have described, 
uttered a groan, or rather a roar of indignation and dis- 
appointed revenge, similar to that of a tiger from whom his 
meal has been rent by his keeper when he was just about to 
devour it. This fierce exclamation seemed to forebode some 
immediate explosion of popular resentment, and, in fact, such 
had been expected by the magistrates, and the necessary 
measures had been taken to repress it. But the shout was not 
repeated, nor did any sudden tumult ensue, such as it appeared 
to announce. The populace seemed to be ashamed of having 
expressed their disappointment in a vain clamour, and the sound 
changed, not into the silence which had preceded the arrival 
of these stunning news, but into stifled mutterings, which each 
group maintained among themselves, and which were blended into 
one deep and hoarse murmur which floated above the assembly. 

Yet still, though all expectation of the execution w^as over, 
the mob remained assembled, stationary, as it -were, through 
very resentment, gazing on the preparations for death, which 
had now been made in vain, and stimulating their feelings by re- 
, calling the various claims which Wilson might have had on royal 
mercy, from the mistaken motives on which he acted, as well 
as from the generosity he had displayed towards his accomplice. 

‘ This man,’ they said, ‘ the brave, the resolute, the generous, 
was executed to death without mercy for stealing a purse of 
gold, which in some sense he might consider as a fair reprisal ; 
while the profligate satellite, who took advantage of a trifling 
tumult, inseparable from such occasions, to shed the blood of 
tw^enty of his fellow-citizens, is deemed a fitting object for the 
exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy. Is this to be borne ? 
Would our fathers have borne it 1 Are not w'e, like them, Scots- 
men and burghers of Edinburgh ? ’ 


36 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Tlio officers of justice began now to remove the scaffold 
and other ])reparations wliieh had been made for the execution, 
in hopes, by doing so, to accelerate the dispersion of the 
multitude. The measure had the desired effect ; for no sooner 
had the fatal tree been unfixed from the large stone pedestal < 
or socket in which it was secured, and sunk slowly down upon 
the wain intended to remove it to the place where it was j 
usually deposited, than the populace, after giving vent to their I 
feelings in a second shout of rage and mortification, began i 
slowly to disperse to their usual abodes and occupations. i 

The windows were in like manner gradually deserted, and 
groups of the more decent class of citizens formed themselves, 
as if waiting to return homewards when the streets should be 
cleared of the rabble. Contrary to what is frequently the case, 
this description of persons agreed in general with the senti- 
ments of their inferiors, and considered the cause as common 
to all ranks. Indeed, as we have already noticed, it was by 
no means amongst the lowest class of the spectators, or those 
most likely to be engaged in the riot at Wilson’s execution,. , 
that the fatal fire of Porteous’s soldiers had taken effect. 
Several pei-sons were killed who were looking out at windows 
at the scene, who could not of course belong to the rioters, and 
were persons of decent rank and condition. The burghei's, 
therefore, resenting the loss which had fallen on their own 
body, and proud and tenacious of their rights, as the citizens 
of Edinburgh have at all times been, were greatly exasperated 
at the unexpected respite of Captain Porteous. 

It was noticed at the time, and afterwards more particularly 
remembered, that, while the mob were in the act of dispersing, 
several individuals were seen busily passing from one place 
and one group of people to another, remaining long with 
none, but whispering for a little time with those who appeared 
to bo declaiming most violently against the conduct of govern- 
ment. These active agents had the appearance of men from 
the country, and were generally supposed to be old friends 
and confederates of Wilson, whose minds were of course highly 
excited against Porteous. 

If, however, it was the intention of these men to stir the 
multitude to any sudden act of mutiny, it seemed for the 
time to be fmitless. The rabble, as well as the more decent 
]xirt of the assembly, dispersed, and went home peaceably ; 
and it was only by observing the moody discontent on their 
brows, or catching the tenor of the convei*sation they held 


TIIPJ HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


37 


with each other, that a stranger could estimate the state of 
their minds. We will give the reader this advantage, by 
associating ourselves with one of the numerous groups who 
were painfully ascending the steep declivity of the West Bow, 
to return to their dwellings in the Lawnmarket. 

‘An unco thing this, Mrs. Howden,’ said old Peter Plum- 
damas to his neighbour the rouping-wife, or saleswoman, as he 
offered her his arm to assist her in the toilsome ascent, ‘ to see 
the grit folk at Lunnon set their face against law and gospel, 
and let loose sic a reprobate as Porteous upon a peaceable 
town ! ’ 

‘ And to think o’ the weary walk they hae gien us,’ answered 
Mrs. Howden, with a groan ; ‘ and sic a comfortable window as 
I had gotten, too, just within a pennystane cast of the scaffold 
— I could hae heard every word the minister said — and to pay 
twal pennies for my stand, and a’ for naething ! ’ 

‘I am judging,’ said Mr. Plumdamas, ‘that this reprieve 
wadna stand gude in the auld Scots law, when the kingdom 
was a kingdom.’ 

‘ I dinna ken muckle about the law,’ answered Mrs. Howden ; 
‘but I ken, when we had a king, and a chancellor, and par- 
liament men o’ our ain, we could aye peeble them wi’ stanes 
when they werena gude bairns. But naebody’s nails can reach 
the length o’ Lunnon.’ 

‘Weary on Lunnon, and a’ that e’er came out o’t!’ said 
Miss Grizel Damahoy, an ancient seamstress ; ‘ they hae taen 
awa our parliament, and they hae oppressed our trade. Our 
gentles will hardly allow that a Scots needle can sew ruffles on 
a sark, or lace on an owerlay.’ 

‘ Ye may say that. Miss Damahoy, and I ken o’ them that 
hae gotten raisins frae Lunnon by forpits at ance,’ responded 
Plumdamas ; ‘ and then sic an host of idle English gaugers and 
excisemen as hae come down to vex and torment us, that an 
honest man canna fetch sae muckle as a bit anker o’ brandy 
frae Leith to the Lawnmarket, but he’s like to be nibbit o’ the 
very gudes he’s bought and paid for. Weel, I winna justify 
Andrew Wilson for pitting hands on what wasna his ; but if he 
took nae mair than his ain, there’s an awfu’ difference between 
that and the fact this man stands for.’ 

‘ If ye speak about the law,’ said Mrs. Howden, ‘ here comes 
Mr. Saddletree, that can settle it as weel as ony on the bench.’ 

The party she mentioned, a grave elderly person, with a 
superb periwig, dressed in a decent suit of sad-coloured clothes, 


38 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


came up as she spoke, and courteously gave his arm to Miss 
Grizel Damahoy. 

It may be necessary to mention that Mr. Bartoline Saddle- 
tree kept an excellent and highly-esteemed shop for harness, 
saddles, etc. etc., at the sign of the Golden Nag, at the head of 
Bess Wynd.* His genius, however (as he himself and most of 
his neighbours conceived), lay towards the weightier matters of j 
the law, and he failed not to give frequent attendance upon : 
the pleadings and arguments of the lawyers and judges in the i 
neighbouring square, where, to say the truth, he was oftener to I 
be found than would have consisted with his own emolument ; i 
but that his wife, an active painstaking person, could, in his 
absence, make an admirable shift to please the customers and 
scold the journeymen. This good lady was in the habit of 
letting her husband take his way, and go on improving his 
stock of legal knowledge without interraption ; but, as if in 
requital, she insisted upon having her own will in the domestic 
and commercial departments which he abandoned to her. Now, 
as Bartoline Saddletree had a considerable gift of words, 
which he mistook for eloquence, and conferred more liberally 
upon the society in which he lived than was at all times 
gracious and acceptable, there went forth a saying, with which 
wags used sometimes to interrupt his rhetoric, that, as he 
had a golden nag at his door, so he had a grey mare in his 
shop. This reproach induced Mr. Saddletree, on all occasions, to 
assume rather a haughty and stately tone towards his good 
woman, a circumstance by which she seemed very^little affected, 
unless he attempted to exercise any real authority, when she 
never failed to fly into open rebellion. But such extremes 
Bartoline seldom provoked ; for, like the gentle King Jamie, he 
was fonder of talking of authority than really exercising it. 
This turn of mind was on the whole lucky for him ; since his 
substance was increased without any trouble on his part, or 
any interruption of his favourite studies. 

This word in explanation has been thrown in to the reader, 
while Saddletree was laying down, with great precision, the 
law upon Porteous’s case, by which he arrived at this conclu- 
sion, that, if Porteous had fired five minutes sooner, before 
Wilson was cut down, he would have been versans in licito, 
engaged, that is, in a lawful act, and only liable to be punished 
'propter excessum, or for lack of discretion, which might have 
mitigated the punishment to poena ordinaria. 

* See Bess Wynd. Note C. 


THE IIEAIIT OF MIDLOTHIAN 


S9 

‘ Discretion ! ’ echoed Mrs. Howden, on whom, it may well 
be supposed, the fineness of this distinction was entirely thrown 
away, ‘ whan had Jock Porteoiis either grace, discretion, or gude 

manners “? I mind when his father ’ 

‘ But, Mrs. Howden,’ said Saddletree 

‘And I,’ said Miss Damahoy, ‘mind when his mother ’ 

‘ Miss Damahoy,’ entreated the interrupted orator 

‘And I,’ said Plumdamas, ‘mind when his wife ’ 

‘Mr. Plumdamas — Mrs. Howden — Miss Damahoy,’ again 
implored the orator, ‘mind the distinction, as Counsellor 
Crossmyloof says — “ I,” says he, “take a distinction.” Now, 
the body of the criminal being cut down, and the execution 
ended, Porteous was no longer official ; the act which he came 
to protect and guard being done and ended, he was no better 
than cuivis ex 'populo.^ 

‘ Quivis — quivisy Mr. Saddletree, craving your pardon,’ said, 
with a prolonged emphasis on the first syllable, Mr. Butler, 
the deputy schoolmaster of a parish near Edinburgh, who at 
that moment came up behind them as the false Latin was 
uttered. 

‘ What signifies interrupting me, Mr. Butler ? — but I am glad 
to see ye notwithstanding. I speak after Counsellor Crossmy- 
loof, and he said cuivis.^ 

‘ If Counsellor Crossmyloof used the dative for the nomina- 
tive, I would have crossed his loof with a tight leathern strap, 
Mr. Saddletree; there is not a boy on the booby form but 
should have been scourged for such a solecism in grammar.’ 

‘I speak Latin like a lawyer, Mr. Butler, and not like a 
schoolmaster,’ retorted Saddletree. 

‘ Scarce like a schoolboy, I think,’ rejoined Butler. 

‘It matters little,’ said Bartoline; ‘all I mean to say is, 
that Porteous has become liable to the poena extra ordinem^ 
or capital punishment, which is to say, in plain Scotch, the 
gallows, simply because he did not fire when he was in office, 
but waited till the body was cut down, the execution whilk he 
had in charge to guard implemented, and he himself exonered 
of the public trust imposed on him.’ 

‘But, Mr. Saddletree,’ said Plumdamas, ‘do ye really think 
John Porteous’s case wad hae been better if he had begun firing 
before ony stanes were flung at a’ ? ’ 

‘Indeed do I, neighbour Plumdamas,’ replied Bartoline, 
confidently, ‘he being then in point of trust and in -point of 
power, the execution being but inchoate, or, at least, not imple- 


40 


WAVERLEY J^OYELS 




merited, or finally ended ; but after Wilson was cut down it 
was a’ ower — he was clean exauctorate, and had nae mair ado 
but to get awa wi’ his Guard up this West Bow as fast as if 
there had been a caption after him. And this is law, for I 
heard it laid down by Lord Vincovincentem.^ 

‘ Vincovincentem ! Is he a lord of state or a lord of seat 1 ’ 
inquired Mrs. Howden. 

‘ A lord of seat — a lord of session. I fash mysell little wi’ 
lords o’ state ; they vex me wi’ a wheen idle questions about 
their saddles, and curpels, and holsters, and horse-furniture, and 
what they’ll cost, and whan they’ll be ready. A wheen gallop- 
ing geese ! my wife may serve the like o’ them.’ 

‘ And so might she, in her day, hae served the best lord in 
the land, for as little as ye think o’ her, Mr. Saddletree,’ said 
Mrs. Howden, somewhat indignant at the contemptuous w^ay in 
which her gossip was mentioned ; ‘ when she and I were twa 
gilpies, we little thought to hae sitten doun -wi’ the like o’ my 
auld Davie Howden, or you either, Mr. Saddletree.’ 

While Saddletree, who was not bright at a reply, was cud- 
gelling his brains for an answer to this home -thrust. Miss 
Damahoy broke in on him. 

‘ And as for the lords of state,’ said Miss Damahoy, ‘ye suld 
mind the riding o’ the parliament, Mr. Saddletree, in the gude 
auld time before the Union : a year’s rent o’ mony a gude estate 
gaed for horse-graith and harnessing, forbye broidered robes and 
foot-mantles, that wad hae stude by their lane wu’ gold brocade, 
and that were muckle in my ain line.’ 

‘ Ay, and then the lusty banqueting, with sweetmeats and 
comfits wet and dry, and dried fruits of divers sorts,’ said Plum- 
damas. ‘ But Scotland was Scotland in these days.’ 

‘ I’ll tell ye what it is, neighbours,’ said Mrs. HowMen, ‘ I’ll 
ne’er believe Scotland is Scotland ony mair, if our kindly Scots 
sit doun with the affront they hae gien us this day. It’s not 
only the bluid that is shed, but the bluid that might hae been 
shed, that’s required at our hands. There was my daughter’s 
wean, little Eppie Daidle — my oe, ye ken, Miss Grizel — had 
played the truant frae the school, as bairns will do, ve ken, Mr. 
Butler ’ 

‘And for which,’ interjected Mr. Butler, ‘they should be 
soundly scourged by their well-wishers.’ 

‘And had just cruppen to the gallows’ foot to see the hang- 
ing, as was natural for a wean ; and what for mightna she hae 
been shot as weel as the rest o’ them, and where wad we a’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


41 


hae been then ? I wonder how Queen Carline — if her name be 
Carline — wad hae liked to hae had ane o’ her ain bairns in sic a 
venture ? ’ 

‘ Report says,’ answered Butler, ‘ that such a circumstance 
would not have distressed her Majesty beyond endurance.’ 

‘ Aweel,’ said Mrs. Howden, ‘ the sum o’ the matter is, that, 
were I a man, I wad hae amends o’ Jock Porteous, be the up- 
shot what like o’t, if a’ the carles and carlines in England had 
sworn to the nay-say.’ 

‘ I would claw down the tolbooth door wi’ my nails,’ said 
Miss Grizel, ‘ but I wad be at him.’ 

‘ Ye may be very right, ladies,’ said Butler, ‘ but I would 
not advise you to speak so loud.’ 

‘ Speak ! ’ exclaimed both the ladies together, ‘ there will be 
naething else spoken about frae the Weigh House to the Water 
Gate till this is either ended or mended.’ 

The females now departed to their respective places of 
abode. Plumdamas joined the other two gentlemen in drink- 
ing their ‘ meridian,’ a bumper-dram of brandy, as they passed 
the well-known low -browed shop in the Lawnmarket where 
they were wont to take that refreshment. Mr. Plumdamas 
then departed towards his shop, and Mr. Butler, who happened 
to have some particular occasion for the rein of an old bridle 
— the truants of that busy day could have anticipated its appli- 
cation — walked down the Lawnmarket with Mr. Saddletree, 
each talking as he could get a word thrust in, the one on the 
laws of Scotland, the other on those of syntax, and neither 
listening to a word which his companion uttered. 


V' 


CHAPTER V 


Elswhair he colde right weel lay down the law, 

But in his house was meek as is a daw. 

Davie Lindsay. 

‘There has been Jock Driver, the carrier, here, speering about 
his new graith,’ said Mrs. Saddletree to her husband, as he 
crossed his threshold, not with the purpose, by any means, of 
consulting him upon his own affairs, but merely to intimate, by 
a gentle recapitulation, how much duty she had gone through 
in his absence. 

‘Weel,’ replied Bartoline, and deigned not a word more. 

‘ And the Laird of Girdingburst has had his running foot- 
man here, and ca’d himsell — he’s a civil pleasant young gentle- 
man — to see when the broidered saddle-cloth for his son’el 
horse will be ready, for he wants it again the Kelso races.’ 

‘Weel, aweel,’ replied Bartoline, as laconically as before. 

‘ And his lordship, the Earl of Blazonbury, Lord Flash and 
Flame, is like to be clean daft that the harness for the six 
Flanders mears, wi’ the crests, coronets, housings, and mount- 
ings conform, are no sent hame according to promise gien.’ 

‘Weel, weel, weel — weel, weel, gudewife,’ said Saddletree, 
‘ if he gangs daft, we’ll hae him cognosced — it’s a’ very week’ 

‘ It’s weel that ye think sae, Mr. Saddletree,’ answered his 
helpmate, rather nettled at the indifference with which her 
report was received; ‘there’s mony ane wad hae thought 
themselves affronted if sae mony customers had ca’d and 
naebody to answer them but women -folk; for a’ the lads 
were aff, as soon as .your back was turned, to see Porteous 
hanged, that might be counted upon ; and sae, you no being 
at hame ’ 

‘Houts, Mrs. Saddletree,’ said Bartoline, with an air of 
consequence, ‘ dinna deave me wi’ your nonsense ; I was under 
the necessity of being elsewhere : non omnia, as Mr. Crossmy- 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


43 


loof said, when he was called by two macers at once — non omnia 
possunms — 2^^ssimus — possimis — I ken our law Latin offends Mr. 
Butler’s ears, but it means “ Naebody,” an it were the Lord 
President himsell, “ can do twa turns at ance.” ’ 

‘Very right, Mr. Saddletree,’ answered his careful helpmate, 
with a sarcastic smile ; ‘ and nae doubt it’s a decent thing to 
leave your wife to look after young gentlemen’s saddles and 
bridles, when ye gang to see a man that never did ye nae ill 
raxing a halter.’ 

‘Woman,’ said Saddletree, assuming an elevated tone, to 
which the ‘ meridian ’ had somewhat contributed, ‘ desist, — I say 
forbear, from intromitting with affairs thou canst not under- 
stand. D’ye think I was born to sit here broggin an elshhi 
through bend -leather, when sic men as Duncan Forbes and 
that other Amiston chield there, without niuckle greater parts, 
if the close-head speak true, than mysell, maun be presidents 
and king’s advocates, nae doubt, and wha but they ? Whereas, 
were favour equally distribute, as in the days of the wight 
Wallace ’ 

‘ I ken naething we wad hae gotten by the wight Wallace,’ 
said Mrs. Saddletree, ‘ unless, as I hae heard the auld folk tell, 
they fought in thae days wi’ bend-leather guns, and then it’s a 
chance but what, if he had bought them, he might have forgot 
to pay for them. And as for the greatness of your parts, 
Bartley, the folk in the close-head maun ken mair about them 
than I do, if they make sic a report of them.’ 

‘I tell ye, woman,’ said Saddletree, in high dudgeon, ‘that 
ye ken naething about these matters. In Sir William Wallace’s 
days there was nae man pinned down to sic a slavish wark as 
a saddler’s, for they got ony leather graith that they had use 
for ready-made out of Holland.’ 

‘ Well,’ said Butler, who was, like many of his profession, 
something of a humorist and dry joker, ‘if that be the case, 
Mr. Saddletree, I think we have changed for the better ; since 
we make our own harness, and only import our lawyers from 
Holland.’ 

‘It’s ower true, Mr. Butler,’ answered Bartoline, with a 
sigh ; ‘ if I had had the luck— or rather, if my father had had 
the sense to send me to Leyden and Utrecht to learn the 
Substitutes and Pandex ’ 

‘ You mean the Institutes — Justinian’s Institutes^ Mr. Saddle- 
tree ? ’ said Butler. 

‘Institutes and substitutes are synonymous words, Mr. 


44 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Butler, and used indifferently as such in deeds of tailzie, as j 
you may see in Balfour’s Practiques, or Dallas of St. Martin’s 
Styles. I understand these things pretty weel, I thank God ; I 
but I own I should have studied in Holland.’ 

‘ To comfort you, you might not have been farther forward 
than you are now, Mr. Saddletree,’ replied Mr. Butler ; ‘ for 
our Scottish advocates, are an aristocratic race. Their brass is 
of the right Corinthian quality, and Non cnivis contigit adire 
Corinthum. Aha, Mr. Saddletree ! ’ i 

‘And aha, Mr. Butler,’ rejoined Bartoline, upon whom, as ' 
may be well supposed, the jest was lost, and all but the sound 
of the words, ‘ye said a gliff syne it w^as quivis, and now I 
heard ye say cuivis with my ain ears, as plain as ever I heard 
a word at the fore-bar.’ < 

‘ Give me your patience, Mr. Saddletree, and I’ll explain the j 
discrepancy in three words,’ said Butler, as pedantic in his own 
department, though with infinitely more judgment and learn- 
ing, as Bartoline was in his self-assumed profession of the law. 

‘ Give me your patience for a moment. You’ll grant that the 
nominative case is that by which a person or thing is nominated ■ 
or designed, and which may be called the primary case, all 
others being formed from it by alterations of the termination 
in the learned languages, and by prepositions in our modern 
Babylonian jargons? You’ll grant me that, I suppose, Mr, 
Saddletree 1 ’ j 

‘ I dinna ken whether I will or no — ad avisandum, ye ken — : 
naebody should be in a hurry to make admissions, either in 
point of law or in point of fact,’ said Saddletree, looking, or 
endeavouring to look, as if he understood what was said. 

‘And the dative case,’ continued Butler 

‘I ken what a tutor dative is,’ said Saddletree, ‘readily 
enough.’ 

‘The dative case,’ resumed the grammarian, ‘is that in 
which anything is given or assigned as properly belonging to 
a person or thing. You cannot deny that, I am sure.’ 

‘ I am sure I’ll no grant it though,’ said Saddletree. 

‘Then, what the dkevil d’ye take the nominative and the 
dative casns to be ? ’ said Butler, hastily, and surprised at once 
out of his decency of expression and accuracy of pronunciation. 

‘ I’ll tell you that at leisure, Mr. Butler,’ said Saddletree, 
with a very knowing look. ‘ I’ll take a day to see and answer 
every article of your condescendence, and then I’ll hold you to 
confess or deny, as accords.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


45 


‘ Come, come, Mr. Saddletree,’ said his wife, ‘ well hae nae 
confessions and condescendences here, let them deal in thae 
sort o’ wares that are paid for them ; they suit the like o’ us 
as ill as a demi-pique saddle w^ould set a draught ox.’ 

‘Aha !’ said Mr. Butler, ^ Optat ephippia bos piger, nothing 
new under the sun. But it was a fair hit of Mrs. Saddletree, 
however.’ 

‘And it wad far better become ye, Mr. Saddletree,’ con- 
tinued his helpmate, ‘ since ye say ye hae skeel o’ the law, to 
try if ye can do ony thing for Effie Deans, puir thing, that’s 
lying up in the tolbooth yonder, canid, and hungry, and comfort- 
less. A servant lass of ours, Mr. Butler, and as innocent a 
lass, to my thinking, and as usefu’ in the chop. When Mr. 
Saddletree gangs out — and ye’re aware he’s seldom at hame 
when there’s ony o’ the plea-houses open — puir Effie used to 
help me to tumble the bundles o’ barkened leather up and 
down, and range out the gudes, and suit a’body’s humours. 
And troth, she could aye please the customers wi’ her answers, 
for she was aye civil, and a bonnier lass wasna in Auld Reekie. 
And when folk w;ere hasty and unreasonable, she could serve 
them better than me, that am no sae young as I hae been, Mr. 
Butler, and a wee bit short in the temper into the bargain ; 
for when there’s ower mony folks crying on me at anes, and 
nane but ae tongue to answer them, folk maun speak hastily, 
or they’ll ne’er get through their wark. Sae I miss Effie daily.’ 

‘De die in diem^ added Saddletree. 

‘I think,’ said Butler, after a good deal of hesitation, ‘I 
have seen the girl in the shop, a modest-looking, fair-haired 

girir 

‘Ay, ay, that’s just puir Effie,’ said her mistress. ‘How 
she was abandoned to hersell, or whether she Avas sackless o’ 
the sinfu’ deed, God in Heaven knows ; but if she’s been guilty, 
she’s been sair tempted, and I wad amaist take my Bible aith 
she hasna been hersell at the time.’ 

Butler had by this time become much agitated ; he fidgeted 
up and down the shop, and shoAved the greatest agitation that 
a person of such strict decorum could be supposed to give way 
to. ‘ Was not this girl,’ he said, ‘ the daughter of David Deans, 
that had the parks at St. Leonard’s taken % and has she not a 
sister % ’ 

‘In troth has she — puir Jeanie Deans, ten years aulder than 
hersell ; she was here greeting a wee while syne about her tittie. 
And what could I say to her, but that she behoved to come and 


46 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


speak to Mr. Saddletree when he was at hame? It wasna 
that I thought Mr. Saddletree could do her or ony other body 
muckle gude or ill, but it wad aye serve to keep the puir thing’s 
heart up for a wee while ; and let sorrow come when sorrow 
maun.’ 

‘ Ye’re mistaen though, gude wife,’ said Saddletree, scornfully, 
for I could hae gien her great satisfaction ; I could hae proved 
to her that her sister was indicted upon the statute 1690, 
chap. 1 [21] — for the mair ready prevention of child-murder, for 
concealing her pregnancy, and giving no account of the child 
which she had borne.’ 

‘ I hope,’ said Butler — ‘ I trust in a gracious God, that she 
can clear herself.’ 

‘And sae do I, Mr. Butler,’ replied Mrs. Saddletree. ‘I am 
sure I wad hae answered for her as my ain daughter ; but, wae’s 
my heart, I had been tender a’ the simmer, and scarce ower the 
door o’ my room for twal weeks. And as for Mr. Saddletree, 
he might be in a lying-in hospital, and ne’er find out what the 
women cam there for. Sae I could see little or naething o’ her, 
or I wad hae had the truth o’ her situation out o’ her, I’se 
warrant ye. But we a’ think her sister maun be able to speak 
something to clear her.’ 

‘ The haill Parliament House,’ said Saddletree, ‘ was speak- 
ing o’ naething else, till this job o’ Porteous’s put it out o’ 
head. It’s a beautiful point of presumptive murder, and there’s 
been nane like it in the Justiciar Court since the case of Luckie 
Smith, the howdie, that suffered in the year 1679.’ 

‘ But what’s ‘the matter wi’ you, Mr. Butler ? ’ said the good 
woman ; ‘ ye are looking as white as a sheet ; will ye take a 
dram ? ’ 

‘By no means,’ said Butler, compelling himself to speak. 
‘I walked in from Dumfries yesterday, and this is a warm 
day.’ 

‘ Sit down,’ said Mrs. Saddletree, laying hands on him kindly, 

‘ and rest ye ; ye’ll kill yoursell, man, at that rate. And are we 
to wish you joy o’ getting the scule, Mr. Butler?’ 

‘Yes — no — I do not know,’ answered the young man, 
vaguely. But Mrs. Saddletree kept him to the point, partly 
out of real interest, partly from curiosity. 

‘Ye dinna ken whether ye are to get the free scule o’ Dum- 
fries or no, after hinging on and teaching it a’ the simmer ? ’ 

‘ No, Mrs. Saddletree, I am not to have it,’ replied Butler, 
more collectedly. ‘ The Laird of Black-at-the-Bane had a natural 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


47 


son bred to the kirk, that the presbytery could not be prevailed 
upon to license ; and so ’ 

‘ Ay, ye need' say nae mair about it ; if there was a laird 
that had a puir kinsman or a bastard that it wad suit, there’s 
eneugh said. And ye’re e’en come back to Liberton to 
wait for dead men’s shoon? and, for as frail as Mr. Whack- 
bairn is, he may live as lang as you, that are his assistant and 
successor.’ 

‘ Very like,’ replied Butler, with a sigh ; ‘ I do not know if I 
should wish it otherwise.’ 

‘Nae doubt it’s a very vexing thing,’ continued the good 
lady, ‘ to be in that dependent station ; and you that hae right 
and title to sae muckle better, I wonder how ye bear these 
crosses.’ 

‘ Quos diligit castigat’ answered Butler; ‘even the pagan 
Seneca could see an advantage in affliction. The heathens had 
their philosophy and the Jews their revelation, Mrs. Saddletree, 
and they endured their distresses in their day. Christians have 
a better dispensation than either, but doubtless ’ 

He stopped and sighed. 

‘ I ken what ye mean,’ said Mrs. Saddletree, looking toward 
her husband ; ‘ there’s whiles wx lose patience in spite of baith 
book and Bible. But ye are no gaun awa, and looking sae 
poorly ; ye’ll stay and take some kail wi’ us ’ 

Mr. Saddletree laid aside Balfour’s Practiques (his favourite 
study, and much good may it do him), to join in his wife’s 
hospitable importunity. But the teacher declined all entreaty, 
and took his leave upon the spot. 

‘ There’s something in a’ this,’ said Mrs. Saddletree, looking 
after him as he walked up the street. ‘ I wonder what makes 
Mr. Butler sae distressed about Effie’s misfortune ; there was nae 
acquaintance atween them that ever I saw or heard of ; but they 
were neighbours when David Deans was on the Laird o’ Dumbie- 
dikes’ land. Mr. Butler wad ken her father, or some o’ her 
folk. Get up, Mr. Saddletree ; ye have set yoursell down on 
the. very brecham that wants stitching ; and here’s little Willie, 
the prentice. Ye little rinthereout deil that ye are, what takes 
you raking through the gutters to see folk hangit? How 
wad ye like when it comes to be your ain chance, as I winna 
ensure ye, if ye dinna mend your manners ? And what are ye 
maundering and greeting for, as if a word were breaking your 
banes ? Gang in bye, and be a better bairn another time, and 
tell Peggy to gie ye a bicker o’ broth, for ye’ll be as gleg as a 


48 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


gled, Tse warrant ye. It’s a fatherless bairn, Mr. Saddletree, 
and motherless, whilk in some cases may be waiir, and ane 
would take care o’ him if they could ; it’s a Christian duty.’ 

‘ Very true, gudewife,’ said Saddletree, in reply, ‘ we are in 
loco parentis to him during his years of pupillarity, and I hae 
had thoughts of applying to the court for a commission as ! 
factor loco tutoris, seeing there is nae tutor nominate, and the j 
tutor-at-law declines to act ; but only I fear the expense of the i 
procedure wad not be in rem versam, for I am not aware if i 
Willie has ony effects whereof to assume the administration.’ 

He concluded this sentence with a self-important cough, as 
one who has laid down the law in an indisputable manner. 

‘ Effects ! ’ said Mrs. Saddletree, ‘ what effects has the puir 
wean ? He was in rags when his mother died ; and the blue 
polonie that Effie made for him out of an auld mantle of my 
ain was the first decent dress the bairn ever had on. Puir 
Effie ! can ye tell me now really, wi’ a’ your law, will her life be 
in danger, Mr. Saddletree, when they arena able to prove that 
ever there was a bairn ava ? ’ 

‘ Whoy,’ said Mr. Saddletree, delighted at having for once . 
in his life seen his wife’s attention arrested by a topic of legal 
discussion — ‘whoy, there are two sorts of murdrum^ or mur- 
dragium, or what you populariter et vulgariter call murther. I 
mean there are many sorts; for there’s your murthrum per 
vigilias et insidias and your murthrum under trust.’ 

‘ I am sure,’ replied his moiety, ‘ that murther by trust is 
the way that the gentry murther us merchants, and whiles . 
make us shut the booth up ; but that has naething to do wi’ 
Effie’s misfortune.’ 

‘ The case of Effie — or Euphemia — Deans,’ resumed Saddle- 
tree, ‘ is one of those cases of murder presumptive, that is, a i 
murder of the law’s inferring or construction, being derived from I 
certain indicia or grounds of suspicion.’ 

‘ So that,’ said the good woman, ‘ unless puir Effie has com- 
municated her situation, she’ll be hanged by the neck, if the • 
bairn was still-born, or if it be alive at this moment ? ’ 

‘Assuredly,’ said Saddletree, ‘it being a statute made by 
our sovereign Lord and Lady to prevent the horrid delict of 
bringing forth children in secret. The crime is rather a 
favourite of the law, this species of murther being one of its 
ain creation.’ * 

‘Then, if the law makes murders,’ said Mrs. Saddletree, ‘the 

* See Law relating to Child-Murder. Note 7. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


49 


law should be hanged for them ; or if they wad hang a lawyer 
instead, the country wad find nae faut.’ 

A summons to their frugal dinner interrupted the further 
progress of the conversation, which was otherwise like to take 
a turn much less favourable to the science of jurisprudence and 
its professors than Mr. Bartoline Saddletree, the fond admirer 
of both, had at its opening anticipated. 


VII 


4 


CHAPTER VI 


But up then raise all Edinburgh, 

They all rose up by thousands three. 

Johnie ArTnstrong's Goodnight. 

Butler, on his departure from the sign of the Golden Nag, 
went in quest of a friend of his connected with the law, of whom 
he wished to make particular inquiries concerning the circum- 
stances in which the unfortunate young woman mentioned in 
the last chapter was placed, having, as the reader has probably 
already conjectured, reasons much deeper than those dictated 
by mere humanity for interesting himself in her fate. He 
found the person he sought absent from home, and was equally 
unfortunate in one or two other calls which he made upon 
acquaintances whom he hoped to interest in her story. But 
everybody was, for the moment, stark mad on the subject of 
Porteous, and engaged busily in attacking or defending the 
measures of government in reprieving him ; and the ardour of 
dispute had excited such universal thirst that half the young 
lawyers and writers, together with their very clerks, the class 
whom Butler was looking after, had adjourned the debate to 
some favourite tavern. It was computed by an experienced 
arithmetician that there was as much twopenny ale consumed 
on the discussion as would have floated a first-rate man- 
of-war. 

Butler wandered about until it was dusk, resolving to take 
that opportunity of visiting the unfortunate young woman, 
when his doing so might be least observed ; for he had his own 
reasons for avoiding the remarks of Mrs. Saddletree, whose 
shop -door opened at no great distance from that of the jail, 
though on the opposite or south side of the street, and a little 
higher up. He passed, therefore, through the narrow and 
partly covered passage leading from the north-west end of the 
Parliament Square. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


51 


I 


I He stood now before the Gothic entrance of the ancient 
! prison, which, as is well known to all men, rears its ancient 
■ front in the very middle of the High Street, forming, as it were, 
j the termination to a huge pile of buildings called the Lucken- 
j booths, which, for some inconceivable reason, our ancestors had 
j jammed into the midst of the principal street of the town, 

‘ leaving for passage a narrow street on the north, and on the 
south, into which the prison opens, a narrow crooked lane, 

: winding betwixt the high and sombre walls of the tolbooth and 
I the adjacent houses on the .one side, and the buttresses and 
j projections of the old Cathedral upon the other. To give some 
j gaiety to this sombre passage, well known by the name of the 
1 Krames, a number of little booths or shops, after the fashion 
I of cobblers’ stalls, are plastered, as it were, against the Gothic 
1 projections and abutments, so that it seemed as if the traders 
i had occupied with nests, bearing the same proportion to the 
j building, every buttress and coign of vantage, as the martlet 
did in Macbeth’s castle. Of later years these booths have de- 
generated into mere toy-shops, where the little loiterers chiefly 
: interested in such wares are tempted to linger, enchanted 
1 by the rich display of hobby-horses, babies, and Dutch toys, 
arranged in artful and gay confusion ; yet half-scared by the 
cross looks of the withered pantaloon, or spectacled old lady, 
by whom these tempting stores are watched and superintended. 
But in the times we write of the hosiers, the glovers, the 
hatters, the mercers, the milliners, and all who dealt in the 
miscellaneous wares now termed haberdashers’ goods, were to 
be found in this narrow alley. 

To return from our digression. Butler found the outer 
turnkey, a tall, thin old man, with long silver hair, in the act 
of locking the outward door of the jail. He addressed himself 
to this person, and asked admittance to Effie Deans, confined 
upon accusation of child-murder. The turnkey looked at him 
earnestly, and, civilly touching his hat out of respect to Butler’s 
black coat and clerical appearance, replied, ‘ It was impossible 
any one could be admitted at present.’ 

‘ You shut up earlier than usual, probably on account of 
Captain Porteous’s affair?’ said Butler. 

The turnkey, with the true mystery of a person in office, 
gave two grave nods, and withdrawing from the wards a 
ponderous key of about two feet in length, he proceeded to shut 
a strong plate of steel which folded down above the keyhole, 
and was secured by a steel spring and catch. Butler stood still 


52 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


instinctively while the door was made fast, and then looking at 
his watch, walked briskly up the street, muttering to himself 
almost unconsciously — • 

Porta adversa, ingens, solidoque adamante columnse ; 

Vis ut niilla virum, non ipsi exscindere ferro 

Coelicolse valeant. Stat ferrea turris ad auras, etc. * I 

Having wasted half an hour more in a second fruitless at- i 
tempt to find his legal friend and adviser, he thought it time to ; 
leave the city and return to his place of residence in a small vil- 
lage about two miles and a half to the southward of Edinburgh. ; 
The metropolis was at this time surrounded by a high wall, with ; 
battlements and flanking projections at some intervals, and the j 
access was through gates, called in the Scottish language ‘ ports, V > 
which were regularly shut at night. A small fee to the keepers j 
would indeed procure egress and ingress at any time, through 
a wicket left for that purpose in the large gate, but it was of 
some importance to a man so poor as Butler to avoid even this | 
slight pecuniary mulct ; and fearing the hour of shutting the i 
gates might be near, he made for that to which he found himself • 
nearest, although by doing so he somewhat lengthened his walk 
homewards. Bristo Port was that by which his direct road lay, 
but the West Port, which leads out of the Grassmarket, was the 
nearest of the city gates to the place where he found himself, 
and to that, therefore, he directed his course. 

He reached the port in ample time to pass the circuit of the 
walls, and enter a suburb called Portsburgh, chiefly inhabited 
by the lower order of citizens and mechanics. Here he was ! 
unexpectedly interrupted. He had not gone far from the 
gate before he heard the sound of a drum, and, to his great i 
surprise, met a number of persons, sufficient to occupy the 
whole front of the street, and form a considerable mass I 
behind, moving with great speed towards the gate he had 
just come from, and having in front of them a drum beating 
to arms. While he considered how he should escape a party 
assembled, as it might be presumed, for no lawful purpose, 
they came full on him and stopped him. 

‘ Are you a clergyman 1 ’ one questioned him. I 

Butler replied that ‘ he was in orders, but was not a placed | 
minister.’ j 

‘ It’s Mr. Butler from Liberton,’ said a voice from behind ; 

‘ he’ll discharge the duty as weel as ony man.’ 

* See Translation. N.ote 8. 


THE HEART OR MIDLOTHIAN 


53 


‘You must turn back with us, sir,’ said the first speaker, 
in a tone civil but peremptory. 

‘For what purpose, gentlemen?’ said Mr. Butler. ‘I live 
at some distance from town ; the roads are unsafe by night ; 
you will do me a serious injury by stopping me.’ 

‘ You shall be sent safely home, no man shall touch a hair 
of your head ; but you must and shall come along with us.’ 

‘ But to what purpose or end, gentlemen ? ’ said Butler. ‘ I 
hope you will be so civil as to explain that to me ? ’ 

‘ You shall know that in good' time. Come along, for come 
you must, by force or fair means; and I warn you to look 
neither to the right hand nor the left, and to take no notice 
of any man’s face, but consider all that is passing before you 
as a dream.’ 

‘ I would it were a dream I could awaken from,’ said Butler 
to himself ; but having no means to oppose the violence with 
which he was threatened, he was compelled to turn round and 
march in front of the rioters, two men partly supporting and 
partly holding him. During this parley the insurgents had 
made themselves masters of the West Port, .rushing upon the 
waiters (so the people were called who had the charge of the 
gates), and possessing themselves of the keys. They bolted 
and barred the folding doors, and commanded the person 
whose duty it usually was to secure the wicket, of which 
they did not understand the fastenings. The man, terrified 
at an incident so totally unexpected, was unable to perform 
his usual office, and gave the matter up, after several attempts. 
The rioters, who seemed to have come prepared for every emer- 
gency, called for torches, by the light of which they nailed up 
the wicket with long nails, which, it appeared probable, they 
had provided on purpose. 

While this was going on, Butler could not, even if he had 
been willing, avoid making remarks on the individuals who 
seemed to lead this singular mob. The torch-light, while it 
fell on their forms and left him in the shade, gave him an 
opportunity to do so without their observing him. Several of 
those who appeared most active were dressed in sailors’ jackets, 
trowsers, and sea-caps ; others in large loose-bodied greatcoats 
and slouched hats ; and there were several who, judging from 
their dress, should have been called women, whose rough deep 
voices, uncommon size, and masculine deportment and mode 
of walking, forbade them being so interpreted. They moved 
as if by some well-concerted plan of arrangement. They had 


64 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


signals by which they knew, and nicknames by which the}^ 
distinguished, each other. Butler remarked that the name of 
AVildfire was used among them, to Tvhich one stout amazon i 
seemed to reply. | 

The rioters left a small party to observe the AVest Port, and | 
directed the waiters, as they valued their lives, to remain within ! 
their lodge, and make no attempt for that night to repossess j 
themselves of the gate. They then moved with rapidity along 
the low street called the Cowgate, the mob of the city eveiy- • 
where rising at the sound of their drum and joining them. 
AVhen the multitude arrived at the Cowgate Port, they secured 
it with as little opposition as the former, made it fast, and 
left a small party to observe it. It was afterwards remarked i 
as a striking instance of prudence and precaution, singularly 
combined with audacity, that the parties left to guard those 
gates did not remain stationary on their posts, but flitted to 
and fro, keeping so near the gates as to see that no efforts were 
made to open them, yet not remaining so long as to have their 
persons closely observed. The mob, at first only about one 
hundred strong, now amounted to thousands, and were increas- 
ing every moment. They divided themselves so as to ascend 
with more speed the various narrow lanes Avhich lead up from 
the Cowgate to the High Street ; and still beating to arms as 
they went, and calling on all true Scotsmen to join them, they 
now filled the principal street of the city. 

The Netherbow Port might be called the Temple Bar of Edin- 
burgh, as, intersecting the High Street at its termination, it 
divided Edinburgh, properly so called, from the suburb named 
the Canongatfe, as Temple Bar separates London from AVest- 
minster. It was of the utmost importance to the rioters to 
possess themselves of this pass, because there was quartered in 
the Canongate at that time a regiment of infantry, commanded 
by Colonel Moyle, which might have occupied the city by 
advancing through this gate, and would possess the power of 
totally defeating their purpose. The leaders therefore hastened 
to the Netherbow Port, which they secured in the same manner, 
and with as little trouble, as the other gates, leaving a party 
to watch it, strong in proportion to the importance of the post. 

The next object of these hardy insurgents was at once to 
disarm the City Guard and to procure arms for themselves; 
for scarce any weapons but staves and bludgeons had been yet 
seen among them. The guard -house was a long, low, ugly 
building (removed in 1787), which to a fanciful imagination 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


55 


might have suggested the idea of a long black snail crawling 
up the middle of the High Street, and deforming its beautiful 
esplanade. This formidable insurrection had been so unexpected 
that there Avere no more than the ordinary sergeant’s guard of 
the city coi’ps upon duty ; even these were without any supply 
of powder and ball ; and sensible enough what had raised the 
storm, and which way it Avas rolling, could hardly be supposed 
very desirous to expose themselves by a valiant defence to 
the animosity of so numerous and desperate a mob, to whom 
they were on the present occasion much more than usually 
obnoxious. 

There was a sentinel upon guard Avho, that one toAvn-guard 
soldier might do his duty on that eventful evening, presented 
his piece, and desired the foremost of the rioters to stand off. 
The young amazon, whom Butler had observed particularly 
active, sprung upon the soldier, seized his musket, and after a 
struggle succeeded in wrenching it from him, and throAving him 
doAvn on the causeway. One or tAvo soldiers, who endeavoured 
to turn out to the support of their sentinel, were in the same 
manner seized and disarmed, and the mob Avithout difficulty 
possessed themselves of the guard-house, disarming and turn- 
ing out of doors the rest of the men on duty. It Avas remarked 
that, notwithstanding the city soldiers had been the instruments 
of the slaughter which this riot Avas designed to revenge, no ill- 
usage or even insult Avas offered to them. It seemed as if the 
vengeance of the people disdained to stoop at any head meaner 
than that Avhich they considered as the source and origin of 
their injuries. 

On possessing themselves of the guard, the first act of the 
multitude was to destroy the drums, by Avhich they supposed 
an alarm might be conveyed to the garrison in the Castle ; for 
the same reason they now silenced their OAvn, which was beaten 
by a young felloAV, son to the drummer of Portsburgh, whom 
they had forced upon that service. Their next business Avas to 
distribute among the boldest of the rioters the guns, bayonets, 
partizans, halberds, and battle or Lochaber axes. Until this 
period the principal rioters had preserved silence on the ulti- 
mate object of their rising, as being that Avhich all knew, but 
none expressed. Now, however, having accomplished all the 
preliminary parts of their design, they raised a tremendous 
shout of ‘ Porteous ! Porteous ! To the tolbooth ! To the 
tolbooth ! ’ 

They proceeded with the same prudence Avhen the object 


56 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


seemed to be nearly in their grasp as they had done hitherto 
when success was more dubious. A strong party of the rioters, 
drawn up in front of the Luckenbooths, and facing down the 
street, prevented all access from the eastward, and the west 
end of the defile formed by the Luckenbooths was secured in 
the same manner; so that the tolbooth was completely sur- 
rounded, and those who undertook the task of breaking it open 
effectually secured against the risk of interruption. 

The magistrates, in the meanwhile, had taken the alarm, 
and assembled in a tavern, with the purpose of raising some 
strength to subdue the rioters. The deacons, or presidents of 
the trades, were applied to, but declared there was little chance 
of their authority being respected by the craftsmen, where it 
was the object to save a man so obnoxious. Mr. Lindsay, 
member of parliament for the city, volunteered the perilous 
task of carrying a' verbal message from the Lord Provost to 
Colonel Moyle, the commander of the regiment lying in the 
Canongate, requesting him to force the Netherbow Port, and 
enter the city to put down the tumult. But Mr. Lindsay 
declined to charge himself with any written order, which, if 
found on his person by an enraged mob, might have cost him 
his life ; and the issue of the application ^vas, that Colonel 
Moyle, having no written requisition from the civil authorities, 
and having the fate of Porteous before his eyes as an example 
of the severe construction put by a jury on the proceedings of 
military men acting on their own responsibility, declined to 
encounter the risk to which the Provost’s verbal communication 
invited him. 

More than one messenger was despatched by different ways 
to the Castle, to require the commanding officer to march down 
his troops, to fire a few cannon-shot, or even to throw a shell 
among the mob, for the purpose of clearing the streets. But 
so strict and watchful were the various patrols whom the rioters 
had established in different parts of the street, that none of the 
emissaries of the magistrates could reach the gate of the Castle. 
They were, however, turned back without either injury or 
insult, and with nothing more of menace than was necessary to 
deter them from again attempting to accomplish their errand. 

The same vigilance was used to prevent everybody of the 
higher, and those which, in this case, might be deemed the 
more suspicious, orders of society from appearing in the street, 
and observing the movements, or distinguishing the persons, of 
the rioters. Every person in the garb of a gentleman was 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


hi 


stopped by small parties of two or three of the mob, who partly 
exhorted, partly required of them, that they should return to 
the place from whence they came. Many a quadrille table was 
spoiled that memorable evening ; for the sedan-chairs of ladies, 
even of the highest rank, were interrupted in their passage 
from one point to another, in despite of the laced footmen and 
blazing flambeaux. This was uniformly done with a deference 
and attention to the feelings of the terrified females which 
could hardly have been expected from the videttes of a mob so 
desperate. Those who stopped the chair usually made the 
excuse that there was much disturbance on the streets, and 
that it was absolutely necessary for the lady’s safety that the 
chair should turn back. They offered themselves to escort the 
vehicles which they had thus interrupted in their progress, from 
the apprehension, probably, that some of those who had casually 
united themselves to the riot might disgrace their systematic 
and determined plan of vengeance, by those acts of general 
insult and license which are common on similar occasions. 

Persons are yet living who remember to have heard from 
the mouths of ladies thus interrupted on their journey in the 
manner we have described, that they were escorted to their 
lodgings by the^young men who stopped them, and even handed 
out of their chairs, with a polite attention far beyond what was 
consistent with their dress, which was apparently that of 
journeymen mechanics.* It seemed as if the conspirators, like 
those who assassinated the Cardinal Beatoun in former days, 
had entertained the opinion that the work about which they 
went was a judgment of Heaven, which, though unsanctioned 
by the usual authorities, ought to be proceeded in with order 
and gravity. 

While their outposts continued thus vigilant, and suffered 
themselves neither from fear nor curiosity to neglect that part 
of the duty assigned to them, and while the main guards to the 
east and west secured them against interruption, a select body 
of the rioters thundered at the door of the jail, and demanded 
instant admission. No one answered, for the outer keeper had 
prudently made his escape with the keys at the commencement 
of the riot, and was nowhere to be found. The door was instantly 
assailed with sledge-hammers, iron crows, and the coulters of 
ploughs, ready provided for the purpose, with which they prized, 
heaved, and battered for some time with little effect ; for, being 
of double oak planks, clenched, both end-long and athwart, with 
» See Note 9. 


58 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


broad-headed nails, the door was so hung and secured as to yield 
to no means of forcing, without the expenditure of much time. 
The rioters, however, appeared determined to gain admittance. 
Gang after gang relieved each other at the exercise, for, of 
course, only a few could work at a time ; but gang after gang 
retired, exhausted with their violent exertions, wuthout making 
much progress in forcing the prison door. Butler had been led 
up near to this the principal scene of action ; so near, indeed, 
that he was almost deafened by the unceasing clang of the heavy 
fore-hammers against the iron-bound portals of the prison. He 
began to entertain hopes, as the task seemed protracted, that 
the populace might give it over in despair, or that some rescue 
might arrive to disperse them. There was a moment at which 
the latter seemed probable. 

The magistrates, having assembled their officers and some 
of the citizens who were willing to hazard themselves for the 
public tranquillity, now sallied forth from the tavern wffiere 
they held their sitting, and approached the point of danger. 
Their officers went before them with links and torches, with a 
herald to read the Riot Act, if necessary. They easily drove 
before them the outposts and videttes of the rioters ; but when 
they approached the line of guard which the mob, or rather, 
we should say, the conspirators, had drawn across the street 
in the front of the Luckenbooths, they were received with an 
unintermitted volley of stones, and, on their nearer approach, 
the pikes, bayonets, and Lochaber axes of which the populace 
had possessed themselves were presented against them. One 
of their ordinary officers, a strong resolute fellow, Avent forward, 
seized a rioter, and took from him a musket; but, being un- 
supported, he w^as instantly thrown on his back in the street, 
and disarmed in his turn. The officer Avas too happy to be 
permitted to rise and run aAA^ay Avithout receiving any farther 
injury; Avhich afforded another remarkable instance of the 
mode in Avhich these men had united a sort of moderation 
toAvards all others Avith the most inflexible inveteracy against 
the object of their resentment. The magistrates, after vain 
attempts to make themselves heard and obeyed, possessing no 
means of enforcing their authority, were constrained to abandon 
the field to the rioters, and retreat in all speed from the showers 
of missiles that AAffiistled around their ears. 

The passive resistance of the tolbooth gate promised to do 
more to baffle the purpose of the mob than the active inter- 
ference of the magistrates. The heavy sledge-hammers con- 


i 

\ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


5S 

tinned to din against it without intermission, and with a noise 
which, echoed from the lofty buildings around the spot, seemed 
enough to have alarmed the garrison in the Castle. It was 
circulated among the rioters that the troops would march down 
to disperse them, unless they could execute their purpose with- 
out loss of time ; or that, even without quitting the fortress, 
the garrison might obtain the same end by throwing a bomb 
or two upon the street. 

Urged by such motives for apprehension, they eagerly re- 
lieved each other at the labour of assailing the tolbooth door ; 
yet such was its strength that it still defied their efforts. At 
length a voice was heard to pronounce the words, ‘ Try it with 
fire.’ The rioters, with an unanimous shout, called for com- 
bustibles, and as all their wishes seemed to be instantly supplied, 
they were soon in possession of two or three empty tar-barrels. 
A huge red glaring bonfire speedily arose close to the door of 
the prison, sending up a tall column of smoke and flame against 
its antique turrets and strongly-grated windows, and illuminat- 
ing the ferocious and wild gestures of the rioters who surrounded 
the place, as well as the pale and anxious groups of those who, 
from windows in the vicinage, watched the progress of this 
alarming scene. The mob fed the fire with whatever they 
could find fit for the purpose. The flames roared and crackled 
among the heaps of nourishment piled on the fire, and a terrible 
shout soon announced that the door had kindled, and was in 
the act of being destroyed. The fire was suffered to decay, 
but long ere it was quite extinguished the most fonvard of 
the rioters rushed, in their impatience, one after another, over 
its yet smouldering remains. Thick showers of sparkles rose 
high in the air as man after man bounded over the glowing 
embers and disturbed them in their passage. It was now 
obvious to Butler and all others who Avere present that the 
rioters would be instantly in possession of their victim, and 
have it in their power to work’ their pleasure upon him, what- 
ever that might be.* 

* See The Old Tolbooth. Note 10. 


‘ CHAPTER VII 


The evil you teach us, we will execute ; and it shall go hard but we 
will better the instruction. 

Merchant of Venice. 

The unhappy object of this remarkable disturbance had been 
that day delivered from the apprehension of a public execution, 
and his joy Avas the greater, as he had some reason to question 
whether government would have run the risk of unpopularity 
by interfering in his favour, after he had been legally con- 
victed, by the verdict of a jury, of a crime so very obnoxious. 
Relieved from this doubtful state of mind, his heart was merry 
Avithin him, and he thought, in the emphatic Avords of Scripture 
on a similar occasion, that surely the bitterness of death Avas 
past. Some of his friends, however, Avho had Avatched the 
manner and behaviour of the croAvd Avhen they Avere made ac- 
quainted Avith the reprieve, Avere of a different opinion. They 
augured, from the unusual sternness and silence Avith Avhich 
they bore their disappointment, that the populace nourished 
some scheme of sudden and desperate vengeance ; and they 
advised Porteous to lose no time in petitioning the proper 
authorities that he might be conveyed to the Castle under a 
sufficient guard, to remain there in security until his ultimate 
fate should be determined. Habituated, hoAvever, by his office 
to overaAve the rabble of the city, Porteous could not suspect 
them of an attempt so audacious as to storm a strong and 
defensible prison ; and, despising the advice by which he might 
have been saved, he spent the afternoon of the eventful day in 
giving an entertainment to some friends Avho visited him in 
jail, several of Avhom, by the indulgence of the captain of the 
tolbooth, Avith A\ffiom he had an old intimacy, arising from their 
official connexion, were even permitted to remain to supper with 
him, though contrary to the rules of the jail. 

It was, therefore, in the hour of unalloyed mirth, when this 
unfortunate wretch was ‘full of bread,’ hot with wine, and 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


61 


high in mistimed and ill -grounded confidence, and, alas ! with 
all his sins full blown, when the first distant shouts of the 
rioters mingled with the song of merriment and intemperance. 
The hurried call of the jailor to the guests, requiring them 
instantly to depart, and his yet more hasty intimation that a 
dreadful and determined mob had possessed themselves of the 
city gates and guard-house, were the first explanation of these 
fearful clamours. 

Porteous might, however, have eluded the fury from which 
the force of authority could not protect him, had he thought of 
slipping on some disguise and leaving the prison along with his 
guests. It is probable that the jailor might have connived at his 
escape, or even that, in the hurry of this alarming contingency, 
he might not have observed it. But Porteous and his friends 
alike wanted presence of mind to suggest or execute such a plan 
of escape. The latter hastily fled from a place where their 
own safety seemed compromised, and the former, in a state 
resembling stupefaction, awaited in Ifis apartment the termina- 
tion of the enterprise of the rioters. The cessation of the clang 
of the instruments with which they had at first attempted to 
force the door gave him momentary relief. The flattering 
hopes that the military had marched into the city, either from 
the Castle or from the suburbs, and that the rioters were 
intimidated and dispersing, were soon destroyed by the broad 
and glaring light of the flames, which, illuminating through the 
grated window every corner of his apartment, plainly showed 
that the mob, determined on their fatal purpose, had adopted a 
means of forcing entrance equally desperate and certain. 

The sudden glare of light suggested to the stupified and 
astonished object of popular hatred the possibility of conceal- 
ment or escape. To rush to the chimney, to ascend it at the 
risk of suffocation, were the only means which seem to have 
occurred to him ; but his progress was speedily stopped by one 
of those iron gratings which are, for the sake of security, 
usually placed across the vents of buildings designed for im- 
prisonment. The bars, however, which impeded his farther 
progress, served to support him in the situation which he had 
gained, and he seized them with the tenacious grasp of one who 
esteemed himself clinging to his last hope of existence. The 
lurid light which had filled the apartment lowered and died 
away ; the sound of shouts was heard within the walls, and on 
the narrow and winding stair, which, cased within one of the 
turrets, gave access to the upper apartments of the prison. 


62 


WAYERLEY NOVELS 


The huzza of the rioters was answered by a shout wild and 
desperate as their own, the cry, namely, of the imprisoned 
felons, who, expecting to be liberated in the general confusion, 
welcomed the mob as their deliverers. By some of these the 
apartment of Porteous was pointed out to his enemies. The 
obstacle of the lock and bolts was soon overcome, and from his 
hiding-place the unfortunate man heard his enemies search 
every corner of the apartment, with oaths and maledictions, 
which would but shock the reader if we recorded them, but 
which served to prove, could it have admitted of doubt, the 
settled purpose of soul with which they sought his destruction. 

A place of concealment so obvious to suspicion and scrutiny 
as that which Porteous had chosen could not long screen him 
from detection. He was dragged from his lurking-place, with 
a violence which seemed to argue an intention to put him to 
death on the spot. More than one weapon was directed towards 
him, when one of the rioters, the same whose female disguise had 
been particularly noticed by Butler, interfered in an authori- 
tative tone. ‘ Are ye mad ? ’ he said, ‘ or would ye execute an 
act of justice as if it were a crime and a cruelty 1 This sacrifice 
will lose half its savour if we do not offer it at the very horns 
of the altar. We will have him die where a murderer should 
die, on the common gibbet. We will have him die where he 
spilled the blood of so many innocents ! ’ 

A loud shout of applause followed the proposal, and the cry, 
‘ To the gallows with the murderer ! To the Grassmarket with 
him ! ’ echoed on all hands. 

‘Let no man hurt him,’ continued the speaker; ‘let him 
make his peace with God, if he can ; we will not kill both his 
soul and body.’ 

‘What time did he give better folk for preparing their 
account ? ’ answered several voices. ‘ Let us mete to him with 
the same measure he measured to them.’ 

But the opinion of the spokesman better suited the temper 
of those he addressed, a temper rather stubborn than impetuous, 
sedate though ferocious, and desirous of colouring their cruel 
and revengeful action with a show of justice and moderation. 

For an instant this man quitted the prisoner, whom he 
consigned to a selected guard, with instructions to permit him 
to give his money and property to whomsoever he pleased. A 
person confined in the jail for debt received this last deposit 
from the trembling hand of the victim, who was at the same 
time permitted to make some other brief arrangements to meet 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


63 


his approaching fate. The felons, and all others who wished 
to leave the jail, were now at full liberty to do so; not that 
their liberation made any part of the settled purpose of the 
rioters, but it followed as almost a necessary consequence of 
forcing the jail doors. With wild cries of jubilee they joined 
the mob, or disappeared among the narrow lanes to seek out 
the hidden receptacles of vice and infamy where they were 
accustomed to lurk and conceal themselves from justice. 

Two persons, a man about fifty years old and a girl about 
eighteen, were all who continued within the fatal walls, except- 
ing two or three debtors, who probably saw no advantage in 
attempting their escape. The persons we have mentioned re- 
mained in the strong-room of the prison, now deserted by all 
others. One of their late companions in misfortune called out 
to the man to make his escape, in the tone of an acquaintance. 
‘ Rin for it, RatclifFe ; the road’s clear.’ 

‘ It may be sae, Willie,’ answered Ratcliffe, composedly, ‘ but 
I have taen a fancy to leave aff trade, and set up for an honest 
man.’ 

‘ Stay there and be hanged, then, for a donnard auld deevil ! ’ 
said the other, and ran down the prison stair. 

The person in female attire whom we have distinguished as 
one of the most active rioters was about the same time at the 
ear of the young woman. ‘ Flee, Effie, flee ! ’ was all he had 
time to whisper. She turned towards him an eye of mingled 
fear, affection, and upbraiding, all contending with a sort of 
stupified surprise. He again repeated, ‘ Flee, Effie, flee, for the 
sake of all that’s good and dear to you ! ’ Again she gazed on 
him, but was unable to answer. A loud noise was now heard, 
and the name of Madge Wildfire was repeatedly called from the 
bottom of the staircase. 

‘ I am coming — I am coming,’ said the person who answered 
to that appellative; and then reiterating hastily, ‘For God’s 
sake — for your own sake — for my sake, flee, or they’ll take your 
life ! ’ he left the strong-room. 

The girl gazed after him for a moment, and then faintly 
muttering, ‘ Better tyne life, since tint is gude fame,’ she sunk 
her head upon her hand, and remained seemingly unconscious 
as a statue of the noise and tumult which passed around her. 

That tumult was now transferred from the inside to the 
outside of the tolbooth. The mob had brought their destined 
victim forth, and were about to conduct him to the common 
place of execution, which they had fixed as the scene of his 


64 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


death. The leader whom they distinguished by the name of 
Madge Wildfire had been summoned to assist at the procession 
by the impatient shouts of his confederates. 

‘ I will ensure you five hundred pounds/ said the unhappy 
man, grasping Wildfire’s hand — ‘five hundred pounds for to 
save my life.’ 

The other answered in the same undertone, and returning 
his grasp with one equally convulsive, ‘Five hundredweight of 
coined gold should not save you. Remember Wilson ! ’ 

A deep pause of a minute ensued, when Wildfire added, in a 
more composed tone, ‘ Make your peace with Heaven. Where 
is the clergyman 1 ’ 

Butler, who, in great terror and anxiety, had been detained 
within a few yards of the tolbooth door, to wait the event of 
the search after Porteous, was now brought forward and com- 
manded to walk by the prisoner’s side, and to prepare him for 
immediate death. His answer was a supplication that the 
rioters would consider what they did. ‘ You are neither judges 
nor jury,’ said he. ‘ You cannot have, by the laws of God or 
man, power to take away the life of a human creature, however 
deserving he may be of death. If it is murder even in a law- 
ful magistrate to execute an offender otherwise than in the 
place, time, and manner which the judges’ sentence prescribes, 
what must it be in you, who have no warrant for interference 
but your own wills ? In the name of Him who is all merc}^, 
show mercy to this unhappy man, and do not dip your hands 
in his blood, nor rush into the yery crime which you are desir- 
ous of avenging ! ’ 

‘Cut your sermon short, you are not in your pulpit,’ an- 
swered one of the rioters. 

‘ If we hear more of your clavers,’ said another, ‘ we are like 
to hang you up beside him.’ 

‘ Peace ! hush ! ’ said Wildfire. ‘ Do the good man no harm ; 
he discharges his conscience, and I like him the better.’ 

He then addressed Butler. ‘Now, sir, we have patiently 
heard you, and we just wish you to understand, in the way nf 
answer, that you may as well argue to the ashler-work and iron 
stanchels of the tolbooth as think to change our purpose. 
Blood must have blood. We have sworn to each other by the 
deepest oaths ever were pledged, that Porteous shall die the 
death he deserves so richly; therefore, speak no more to us, 
but prepare him for death as well as the briefness of his change 
will permit.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


65 


They had suffp’ed the unfortunate Porteous to put on his 
nightgown and slippers, as he had thrown off his coat and shoes 
in order to facilitate his attempted escape up the chimney. ' In 
this garb he was now mounted on the hands of two of the 
rioters, clasped together, so as to form what is called in Scot- 
land ‘ The King’s Cushion.’ Butler was placed close to his side, 
and repeatedly urged to perform a duty always the most painful 
which can be imposed on a clergyman deserving of the name, 
and now rendered more so by the peculiar and horrid circum- 
stances of the criminal’s case. Porteous at first uttered some 
supplications for mercy, but when he found that there was no 
chance that these would be attended to, his military education, 
and the natural stubbornness of his disposition, combined to 
support his spirits. 

‘ Are you prepared for this dreadful end ? ’ said Butler, in a 
faltering voice. ‘ 0 turn to Him in whose eyes time and space 
have no existence, and to whom a few minutes are as a lifetime, 
and a lifetime as a minute.’ 

‘ I believe I know what you would say,’ answered Porteous, 
sullenly. ‘ I was bred a soldier ; if they will murder me with- 
out time, let my sins as well as my blood lie at their door.’ 

‘ Who was it,’ said the stern voice of Wildfire, ‘ that said to 
Wilson at this very spot, when he could not pray, owing to 
the galling agony of his fetters, that his pains would soon 
be over? I say to you, take your own tale home; and 
if you cannot profit by the good man’s lessons, blame not 
them that are still more merciful to you than you were to 
others.’ 

The procession now moved forward with a slow and deter- 
mined pace. It was enlightened by many blazing links and 
torches ; for the actors of this work were so far from affecting 
any secrecy on the occasion that they seemed even to court 
observation. Their principal leaders kept close to the person 
of the prisoner, whose pallid yet stubborn features were seen 
distinctly by the torch-light, as his person was raised consider- 
ably above the concourse which thronged around him. Those 
who bore swords, muskets, and battle-axes marched on each 
side, as if forming a regular guard to the procession. The 
windows, as they went along, were filled with the inhabitants, 
whose slumbers had been broken by this unusual disturbance. 
Some of the spectators muttered accents of encouragement; 
but in general they were so much appalled by a sight so 
strange and audacious, that they looked on with a sort of 

5 


VII 


66 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


stupified astonishment. No one offered, by act or word, the 
slightest interruption. 

The rioters, on their part, continued to act with the same 
ail’ of deliberate confidence and security which had marked all 
their proceedings. When the object of their resentment dropped 
one of his slippers, they stopped, sought for it, and replaced it 
upon his foot with great deliberation.* As they descended 
the Bow towards the fatal spot where they designed to com- 
plete their purpose, it was suggested that there should be a 
rope kept in readiness. For this purpose the booth of a man 
who dealt in cordage was forced open, a coil of rope fit for 
their purpose was selected to serve as a halter, and the dealer 
next morning found that a guinea had been left on his counter in 
exchange ; so anxious were the perpetrators of this daring action 
to show that they meditated not the slightest wrong for infrac- 
tion of law, excepting so far as Porteous was himself concerned. 

Leading, or carrying along with them, in this determined 
and regular manner, the object of their vengeance, they at 
length reached the place of common execution, the scene of 
his crime, and destined spot of his sufferings. Several of the 
rioters (if they should not rather be described as conspirators) 
endeavoured to remove the stone which filled up the socket 
in which the end of the fatal tree was sunk when it was erected 
for its fatal purpose ; others sought for the means of construct- 
ing a temporary gibbet, the place in which the gallows itself 
was deposited being reported too secure to be forced, without 
much loss of time. 

Butler endeavoured to avail himself of the delay afforded 
by these circumstances to turn the people from their desperate 
design. ‘For God’s sake,’ he exclaimed, ‘remember it is the 
image of your Creator which you are about to deface in the 
person of this unfortunate man ! Wretched as he is, and wicked 
as he may be, he has a share in every promise of Scripture, and 
you cannot destroy him in impenitence without blotting his 
name from the Book of Life. Do not destroy soul and body ; 
give time for preparation.’ 

‘What time had they,’ returned a stern voice, ‘whom he 
murdered on this very spot ? The laws both of God and man 
call for his death.’ 

‘But what, my friends,’ insisted Butler, with a generous 


This little incident, characteristic of the extreme composure of this extraordinary 
mob, was witnessed by a lady who, disturbed, like others, from her slumbers, had gone 
to the windpw. It was told to the Author by the lady’s daughter. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


67 


disregard to his own safety — ‘ what hath constituted you his 
judges?’ 

‘We are not his judges,’ replied the same person; ‘he has 
been already judged and condemned by lawful authority. We 
are those whom Heaven, and our righteous anger, have stirred 
up to execute judgment, when a corrupt government would 
have protected a murderer.’ 

‘I am none,’ said the unfortunate Porteous; ‘that which 
you charge upon me fell out in self-defence, in the lawful 
exercise of my duty.’ 

‘ Away with him — away with him ! ’ was the general cry. 
‘Why do you trifle away time in making a gallows? that 
dy ester’s pole is good enough for the homicide.’ 

The unhappy man was forced to his fate with remorseless 
rapidity. Butler, separated from him by the press, escaped 
the last horrors of his struggles. Unnoticed by those who 
had hitherto detained him as a prisoner, he fled from the 
fatal spot, without much caring in what direction his course 
lay. A loud shout proclaimed the stern delight with which 
the agents of this deed regarded its completion. Butler then, 
at the opening into the low street called the Cowgate, cast 
back a terrified glance, and by the red and dusky light of the 
torches he could discern a figure wavering and struggling as it 
hung suspended above the heads of the multitude, and could 
even observe men striking at it with their Lochaber axes and 
partizans. The sight ’was of a nature to double his horror and 
to add wings to his flight. 

The street down which the fugitive ran opens to one of the 
eastern ports or gates of the city. Butler did not stop till he 
reached it, but found it still shut. He waited nearly an hour, 
walking up and down in inexpressible perturbation of mind. 
At length he ventured to call out and rouse the attention of 
the terrified keepers of the gate, who now found themselves 
at liberty to resume their office without interruption. Butler 
requested them to open the gate. They hesitated. He told 
them his name and occupation. 

‘He is a preacher,’ said one ; ‘ I have heard him preach in 
Haddo’s Hole.’ 

‘ A fine preaching has he been at the night,’ said another ; 
‘ but maybe least said is sunest mended.’ 

Opening then the wicket of the main gate, the keepers 
suffered Butler to depart, who hastened to carry his horror 
and fear beyond the walls of Edinburgh. His first purpose 


68 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


was instantly to take the road homeward ; but other fears 
and cares, connected with the news he had learned in that 
remarkable day, induced him to linger in the neighbourhood 
of Edinburgh until daybreak. More than one group of persons 
passed him as he was whiling away the hours of darkness that 
yet remained, whom, from the stifled tones of their discourse, 
the unwonted hour when they travelled, and the hasty pace 
at which they walked, he conjectured to have been engaged in 
the late fatal transaction. 

Certain it was, that the sudden and total dispersion of the 
rioters, Avhen their vindictive purpose was accomplished, seemed 
not the least remarkable feature of this singular affair. In 
general, whatever may be the impelling motive by which a 
mob is at first raised, the attainment of their object has usually 
been only found to lead the way to farther excesses. But not 
so in the present case. They seemed completely satiated with 
the vengeance they had prosecuted with such stanch and 
sagacious activity. When they were fully satisfied that life 
had abandoned their victim, they dispersed in every direction, 
throwing down the weapons which they had only assumed to 
enable them to carry through their purpose. At daybreak 
there remained not the least token of the events of the night, 
excepting the corpse of Porteous, which still hung suspended 
in the place where he had suffered, and the arms of various 
kinds which the rioters had taken from the city guard-house, 
which were found scattered about the streets as they had 
thrown them from their hands, when the purpose for which 
they had seized them was accomplished.* 

The ordinary magistrates of the city resumed their power, 
not without trembling at the late experience of the fragility of 
its tenure. To march troops into the city, and commence a 
severe inquiry into the transactions of the preceding night, 
were the first marks of returning energy which they displayed. 
But these events had been conducted on so secure and well- 
calculated a plan of safety and secrecy, that there was little or 
nothing learned to throw light upon the authors or principal 
actors in a scheme so audacious. An express was despatched 
to London with the tidings, where they excited great indigna- 
tion and surprise in the council of regency, and particularly in 
the bosom of Queen Caroline, who considered her own authority 
as exposed to contempt by the success of this singular con- 
spiracy. Nothing was spoke of for some time save the measure 
* See The Murder of Captain Porteous. Note 11, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


69 


of vengeance which should be taken, not only on the actors of 
this tragedy, so soon as they should be discovered, but upon 
the magistrates who had suffered it to take place, and upon the 
city which had been the scene where it was exhibited. On this 
occasion, it is still recorded in popular tradition that her 
Majesty, in the height of her displeasure, told the celebrated 
John, Duke of Argyle, that, sooner than submit to such an 
insult, she would make Scotland a hunting-field. ‘In that 
case. Madam,’ answered that high-spirited nobleman, with a 
profound bow, ‘ I will take leave of your Majesty, and go down 
to my own country to get my hounds ready.’ 

The import of the reply had more than met the ear ; and as 
most of the Scottish nobility and gentry seemed actuated by 
the same national spirit, the royal displeasure was necessarily 
checked in mid-volley, and milder courses were recommended 
and adopted, to some of which we may hereafter have occasion 
to advert. 




CHAPTER VIII 

Arthur’s- Seat shall be my bed, i 

The sheets shall ne’er be press’d by me ; i 

St. Anton’s well shall be my drink, J 

Sin’ my true-love’s forsaken me. j 

Old Song. 

If I were to choose a spot from which the rising or setting sun 1 
could be seen to the greatest possible advantage, it would be i 
that wild path winding around the foot of the high belt of i 
semicircular rocks called Salisbury Crags, and marking the 
verge of the steep descent which slopes down into the glen on i 
the south-eastern side of the city of Edinburgh. The prospect, 
in its general outline, commands a close-built, high-piled city, 
stretching itself out beneath in a form which, to a romantic 
imagination, may be supposed to represent that of a dragon ; 
now a noble arm of the sea, with its rocks, isles, distant shores, 
and boundary of mountains ; and now a fair and fertile cham- 
paign country, varied with hill, dale, and rock, and skirted by ' 
the picturesque ridge of the Pentland Mountains. But as ^ 
the path gently circles around the base of the cliffs, the ! 
prospect, composed as it is of these enchanting and sublime j 
objects, changes at every step, and presents them blended ' 
with, or divided from, each other in every possible variety j 
which can gratify the eye and the imagination. When a ! 
piece of scenery so beautiful, yet so varied, so exciting by | 
its intricacy, and yet so sublime, is lighted up by the tints ' 
of morning or of evening, and displays all that variety of 
shadowy depth, exchanged with partial brilliancy, which gives ; 
character even to the tamest of landscapes, the effect ap- 1 
proaches near to enchantment. This path used to be my i 
favourite evening and morning resort, when engaged with a 
favourite author or new subject of study. It is, I am in- | 
formed, now become totally impassable, a circumstance which, i 


^ THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN H 

if true, reflects little credit on the taste of the Good Town or 
I its leaders.* 

It was from this fascinating path — the scene to me of so 
I much delicious musing, when life was young and promised to 
I be happy, that I have been unable to pass it over without an 
s episodical description — it was, I say, from this romantic path 
! that Butler saw the morning arise the day after the murder of 
I Porteous. It was possible for him with ease to have found a 
much shorter road to the house to which he was directing his 
course, and, in fact, that which he chose was extremely cir- 
cuitous. But to compose his own spirits, as well as to while 
away the time, until a proper hour for visiting the family with- 
out surprise or disturbance, he was induced to extend his cir- 
cuit by the foot of the rocks, and to linger upon his way until 
the morning should be considerably advanced. While, now 
standing with his arms across and waiting the slow progress 
of the sun above the horizon, now sitting upon one of the 
numerous fragments which storms had detached from the 
rocks above him, he is meditating alternately upon the horrible 
catastrophe which he had witnessed, and upon the melancholy, 
and to him most interesting, news which he had learned at 
Saddletree’s, we will give the reader to understand who Butler 
' was, and how his fate was connected with that of Effie Deai^s, 
the unfortunate handmaiden of the careful Mrs. Saddletree. 

Reuben Butler was of English extraction, though bom in 
Scotland. His grandfather was a trooper in Monk’s army, and 
one of the party of dismounted dragoons which formed the for- 
lorn hope at the storming of Dundee in 1651. Stephen Butler 
(called, from his talents in reading and expounding. Scripture 
Stephen and Bible Butler) was a stanch Independent, and 
received in its fullest comprehension the promise that the saints 
should inherit the earth. As hard knocks were what had 
. chiefly fallen to his share hitherto in the division of this common 
property, he lost not the opportunity, which the storm and 
plunder of a commercial place afforded him, to appropriate as 
large a share of the better things of this world as he could 
possibly compass. It would seem that he had succeeded in- 
differently well, for his exterior circumstances appeared, in con- 
sequence of this event, to have been much mended. 

The troop to which he belonged was quartered at the village 

* A beautiful and solid pathway has, within a few years, been formed around these 
romantic rocks ; and the Author has the pleasure to think that the passage in the 
text gave rise to the undertaking. 


72 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


of Dalkeith, as forming the body-guard of Monk, who, in the 
capacity of general for the Commonwealth, resided in the 
neighbouring castle. When, on the eve of the Restoration, the 
general commenced his march from Scotland, a measure preg- 
nant with such important consequences, he new-modelled his 
troops, and more especially those immediately about his per- 
son, in order that they might consist entirely of individuals 
devoted to himself. On this occasion Scripture Stephen was 
weighed in the balance and found wanting. It was supposed he 
felt no call to any expedition which might endanger the reign 
of the military sainthood, and that he did not consider him- 
self as free in conscience to join with any party which might 
be likely ultimately to acknowledge the interest of Charles 
Stuart, the son of ‘ the last man,’ as Charles I. was familiarly 
and irreverently termed by them in their common discourse, 
as well as in their more elaborate predications and harangues. 
As the time did not admit of cashiering such dissidents, Stephen 
Butler was only advised in a friendly way to give up his horse 
and accoutrements to one of Middleton’s old troopers, who pos- 
sessed an accommodating conscience of a military stamp, and 
which squared itself chiefly upon those of the colonel and pay- 
master. As this hint came recommended by a certain sum of 
arrears presently payable, Stephen had carnal wisdom enough 
to embrace the proposal, and with great indifference saw his 
old corps depart for Coldstream, on their route for the south, to 
establish the tottering government of England on a new basis. 

The ‘zone’ of the ex-trooper, to use Horace’s phrase, was 
weighty enough to purchase a cottage and two or three fields 
(still known by the name of Beersheba), within about a Scottish 
mile of Dalkeith ; and there did Stephen establish himself with 
a youthful helpmate, chosen out of the said village, whose dis- 
position to a comfortable settlement on this side of the grave 
reconciled her to the gruff manners, serious temper, and weather- 
beaten features of the martial enthusiast. Stephen did not 
long survive the falling on ‘ evil days and evil tongues,’ of which 
Milton, in the same predicament, so mournfully complains. At 
his death his consort remained an early widow, with a male 
child of three years old, which, in the sobriety wherewith it 
demeaned itself, in the old-fashioned and even grim cast of its 
features, and in its sententious mode of expressing itself, would 
sufficiently have vindicated the honour of the widow of Beer- 
sheba, had any one thought proper to challenge the babe’s 
descent from Bible Butler. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


73 


Butler’s principles had not descended to his family, or ex- 
tended themselves among his neighbours. The air of Scotland 
was alien to the growth of Independency, however favourable to 
fanaticism under other colours. But, nevertheless, they were 
not forgotten; and a certain neighbouring laird, who piqued 
himself upon the loyalty of his principles ‘ in the worst of times ’ 
(though I never heard they exposed him to more peril than 
that of a broken head, or a night’s lodgiug in the main guard, 
when wine and Cavalierism predominated in his upper story), 
had found it a convenient thing to rake up all matter of ac- 
cusation against the deceased Stephen. In this enumeration 
his religious principles made no small figure, as, indeed, they 
must have seemed of the most exaggerated enormity to one 
whose own were so small and so faintly traced as to be well- 
nigh imperceptible. In these circumstances, poor widow Butler 
was supplied Avith her full proportion of fines for nonconformity, 
and all the other oppressions of the time, until Beersheba Avas 
fairly Avrenched out of her hands, and became the property of 
the laird Avho had so wantonly, as it had hitherto appeared, 
persecuted this poor forlorn Avoman. When his purpose was 
fairly achieved, he showed some remorse or moderation, or 
Avhatever the reader may please to term it, in permitting her to 
occupy her husband’s cottage, and cultivate, on no very heavy 
terms, a croft of land adjacent. Her son, Benjamin, in the 
meanwhile, greAv up to man’s estate, and, moved by that im- 
pulse which makes men seek marriage even when its end can 
only be the perpetuation of misery, he wedded and brought a 
Avife, and eventually a son, Reuben, to share the poverty of 
Beersheba. 

The Laird of Dumbiedikes * had hitherto been moderate in 
his exactions, perhaps because he was ashamed to tax too highly 
the miserable means of support which remained to the Avidow 
.Butler. But when a stout active young fellow appeared as the 
labourer of the croft in question, Dumbiedikes began to think 
so broad a pair of shoulders might bear an additional burden. 
He regulated, indeed, his management of his dependents (avIio 
fortunately were but feAV in number) much upon the principle 
of the carters whom he observed loading their carts at a 
neighbouring coal-hill, and who never failed to clap an addi- 
tional brace of hundredweights on their burden, so soon as by 
any means they had compassed a new horse of somewhat 
superior strength to that Avhich had broken down the day 
* See Dumbiedikes. Note 12. 


74 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


before. However reasonable this practice appeared to the 
Laird of Dumbiedikes, he ought to have observed that it may 
be overdone, and that it infers, as a matter of course, the de- 
struction and loss of both horse, cart, and loading. Even so it 
befell when the additional ‘ prestations ’ came to be demanded 
of Benjamin Butler. A man of few words and few ideas, 
but attached to Beersheba with a feeling like that which a | 
vegetable entertains . to the sj)ot in which it chances to be I 
planted, he neither remonstrated with the Laird nor endea- ; 
voured to escape from him, but, toiling night and day to ac- ! 
complish the temis of his taskmaster, fell into a burning fever ■ 
and died. His wife did not long survive him ; and, as if it had , 
been the fate of this family to be left orphans, our Reuben j 
Butler was, about the year 1704-5, left in the same circum- ; 
stances in which his father had been placed, and under the i 
same guardianship, being that of his grandmother, the widow i 
of Monk’s old trooper. ! 

The same prospect of misery hung over the head of another 
tenant of this hard-hearted lord of the soil. This was a tough 
true-blue Presbyterian, called Deans, who, though most ob- 
noxious to the Laird on account of principles in church and i 
state, contrived to maintain his ground upon the estate by 
regular payment of mail -duties, kain, arriage, carriage, dry 
multure, lock, gowpen, and knaveship, and all the various 
exactions now commuted for money, and summed up in the | 
emphatic word rent. But the years 1700 and 1701, long re- 
membered in Scotland for dearth and general distress, subdued | 
the stout heart of the agricultural Whig. Citations by the ! 
ground-officer, decreets of the Baron Court, sequestrations, 
poindings of outsight and insight plenishing, flew about his i 
ears as fast as ever the Tory bullets whistled around those of ) 
the Covenanters at Pentland, Bothwell Brig, or Aird’s Moss. ' 
Struggle as he might, and he struggled gallantly, ‘Douce 
David Deans ’ was routed horse and foot, and lay at the mercy j 
of his grasping landlord just at the time that Benjamin Butler | 
died. The fate of each family was anticipated ; but they who ! 
prophesied their expulsion to beggary and ruin were disappointed 
by an accidental circumstance. 

On the very term-day when their ejection should have taken 
place, when all their neighbours were prepared to pity and not 
one to assist them, the minister of the parish, as w^ell as a 
doctor from Edinburgh, received a hasty summons to attend 
the Laird of Dumbiedikes. Both were surprised, for his con- 


THE HEART OE MIDLOTHIAN 


75 


I tempt for both faculties had been pretty commonly his theme 
I over an extra bottle, that is to say, at least once every day. 
The leech for the soul and he for the body alighted in the 
court of the little old manor-house at almost the same time ; 
and when they had gazed a moment at each other with some 
surprise, they in the same breath expressed their conviction 
that Dumbiedikes must needs be very ill indeed, since he sum- 
moned them both to his presence at once. Ere the servant 
could usher them to his apartment the party was augmented 
by a man of law, Nichil Novit, writing himself procurator before 
the sheriff court, for in those days there were no solicitors. This 
latter personage was first summoned to the apartment of the 
Laird, where, after some short space, the soul-curer and the 
body-curer were invited to join him. 

Dumbiedikes had been by this time transported into the best 
bedroom, used only upon occasions of death and marriage, and 
called, from the former of these occupations, the Dead Room. 
There were in this apartment, besides the sick person himself 
and Mr. Novit, the son and heir of the patient, a tall gawky 
silly-looking boy of fourteen or fifteen, and a housekeeper, a 
good buxom figure of a woman, betwixt forty and fifty, who 
had kept the keys and managed matters at Dumbiedikes since 
the lady’s death. It was to these attendants that Dumbiedikes 
addressed himself pretty nearly in the following words ; tem- 
poral and spiritual matters, the care of his health and his affairs, 
being strangely jumbled in a head which was never one of the 
clearest : — 

‘ These are sair times wi’ me, gentlemen and neighbours ! 
amaist as ill as at the aughty-nine, when I was rabbled by the 
collegeaners.* They mistook me muckle : they ca’d me a Papist, 
but there was never a Papist bit about me, minister. Jock, 
ye’ll take warning. It’s a debt we maun a’ pay, and there stands 
• Nichil Novit that will tell ye I was never gude at paying debts 
in my life. Mr. Novit, ye’ll no forget to draw the annual rent 
that’s due on the yerl’s band ; if I pay debt to other folk, I 
think they suld pay it to me — that equals aquals. J ock, when 
ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree ; 
it will be growing, Jock, when ye’re sleeping.! My father tauld 
me sae forty years sin’, but I ne’er fand time to mind him. 
Jock, ne’er drink brandy in the morning, it files the stamach 
sair ; gin ye take a morning’s draught, let it be aqua mirabilis ; 

* See College Students. Note 13. 
t See Recommendation to Arboriculture. Note 14. 


76 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Jeni\y there makes it week Doctor, my breath is growing as 
scant as a broken-winded piper’s, when he has played for four 
and twenty hours at a penny-wedding. Jenny, pit the cod 
aneath my head ; but it’s a’ needless ! Mass J ohn, could ye 
think o’ rattling ower some bit short prayer ; it wad do me gude 
maybe, and keep some queer thoughts out o’ my head. Say 
something, man.’ 

‘ I cannot use a prayer like a ratt-rhyme,’ answered the honest 
clergyman ; ‘ and if you would have your soul redeemed like a 
prey from the fowler, Laird, you must needs show me your state 
of mind.’ 

‘And shouldna ye ken that without my telling you?’ answered 
the patient. ‘What have I been paying stipend and teind, par- 
sonage and vicarage for, ever sin’ the aughty-nine, an I carina 
get a spell of a prayer for’t, the only time I ever asked for ane 
in my life ? Gang awa’ wi’ your Whiggery, if that’s a’ ye can do; 
auld Curate Kiltstoup wad hae read half the Prayer Book to me 
by this time. Awa’ wi’ ye ! Doctor, let’s see if ye can do ony 
thing better for me.’ 

The Doctor, who had obtained some infoimation in the mean- 
while from the housekeeper on the state of his complaints, assured 
him the medical art could not prolong his life many hours. 

‘ Then damn Mass John and you baith ! ’ cried the furious 
and intractable patient. ‘ Did ye come here for naething but 
to tell me that ye canna help me at the pinch ? Out wi’ them, 
Jenny — out o’ the house! and, Jock, my curse, and the curse 
of Cromwell, go wi’ ye, if ye gie them either fee or bountith, or 
sae muckle as a black pair o’ cheverons ! ’ 

The clergyman and doctor made a speedy retreat out of the 
apartment, while Dumbiedikes fell into one of those transports 
of violent and profane language which had procured him the sur- 
name of Damn-me-dikes. ‘Bring me the brandy bottle, Jenny, 

ye b ,’ he cried, with a voice in which passion contended 

with pain. ‘ I can die as I have lived, without fashing ony o’ 
them. But there’s ae thing,’ he said, sinking his voice — ‘ there’s 
ae fearful thing hings about my heart, and an anker of brandy 
winna wash it away. The Deanses at Woodend 1 I seques- 
trated them in the dear years, and now they are to flit, they’ll 
starve ; and that Beersheba, and that auld trooper’s wife and 
her oe, they’ll starve — they’ll starve 5 Look out, Jock ; what 
kind o’ night is’t ? ’ 

‘ On-ding o’ snaw, father,’ answered Jock, after having opened 
the window and looked out with great composure. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


77 


‘ They’ll perish in the drifts ! ’ said the expiring sinner — 

* they’ll perish wi’ canid ! but I’ll be het eneugh, gin a’ tales 
be true.’ 

This last observation was made under breath, and in a tone 
which made the very attorney shudder. He tried his hand at 
ghostly advice, probably for the first time in his life, and recom- 
mended, as an opiate for the agonised conscience of the Laird, 
reparation of the injuries he had done to these distressed families, 
which, he observed by the way, the civil law called restitutio in 
integrum. But Mammon was struggling with Remorse for retain- 
ing his place in a bosom he had so long possessed \ and he partly 
succeeded, as an old tyrant proves often too strong for his in- 
surgent rebels. 

‘I canna do’t,’ he answered, with a voice of despair. ‘It 
would kill me to do’t; how can ye bid me pay back siller, 
when ye ken how I want it 'I or dispone Beersheba, when it lies 
sae weel into my ain plaid-nuik ? Nature made Dumbiedikes 

and Beersheba to be ae man’s land. She did, by Nichil, 

it wad kill me to part them.’ 

‘ But ye maun die whether or no, Laird,’ said Mr. Novit ; 

‘ and maybe ye wad die easier, it’s but trying. I’ll scroll the 
disposition in nae time.’ 

‘ Dinna speak o’t, sir,’ replied Dumbiedikes, ‘ or I’ll fling the 
stoup at your head. But, Jock, lad, ye see how the warld 
warstles wi’ me on my death-bed ; be kind to the puir creatures, 
the Deanses and the Butlers — be kind to them, Jock. Dinna 
let the warld get a grip o’ ye, Jock ; but keep the gear thegither ! 
and whate’er ye do, dispone Beersheba at no rate. Let the 
creatures stay at a moderate mailing, and hae bite and soup ; it 
will maybe be the better wi’ your father whare he’s gaun, lad.’ 

After these contradictory instructions, the Laird felt his 
mind so much at ease that he drank three bumpers of brandy 
continuously, and ‘soughed awa’,’ as Jenny expressed it, in an 
attempt to sing ‘ Deil stick the minister.’ 

His death made a revolution in favour of the distressed 
families. John Dumbie, now of Dumbiedikes, in his own right, 
seemed to be close and selfish enough ; but wanted the grasp- 
ing spirit and active mind of his father ; and his guardian 
happened to agree with him in opinion that his father’s dying 
recommendation should be attended to. The tenants, therefore, 
were not actually turned out of doors among the snow wreaths, 
and were allowed wherewith to procure butter-milk and pease 
bannocks, which they ate under the full force of the original 


78 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


malediction. The cottage of Deans, called Woodend, was not 
very distant from that at Beersheba. Formerly there had been 
little intercourse between the families. Deans was a sturdy 
Scotchman, with all sort of prejudices against the Southern, 
and the spawn of the Southern. Moreover, Deans was, as we 
have said, a stanch Presbyterian, of the most rigid and unbend- 
ing adherence to what he conceived to be the only possible 
straight line, as he was wont to express himself, between right- 
hand heats and extremes and left-hand defections ; and, there- 
fore, he held in high dread and horror all Independents, and 
whomsoever he supposed allied to them. 

But, notwithstanding these national prejudices and religious 
professions. Deans and the widow Butler were placed in such 
a situation as naturally and at length created some intimacy 
between the families. They had shared a common danger and 
a mutual deliverance. They needed each other’s assistance, 
like a company who, crossing a mountain stream, are compelled 
to cling close together, lest the current should be too powerful 
for any who are not thus supported. 

On nearer acquaintance, too. Deans abated some of his pre- 
judices. He found old Mrs. Butler, though not thoroughly 
grounded in the extent and bearing of the real testimony against 
the defections of the times, had no opinions in favour of the 
Independent party ; neither was she an Englishwoman. There- 
fore, it was to be hoped that, though she was the v/idow of 
an enthusiastic corporal of Cromwell’s dragoons, her grandson 
might be neither schismatic nor anti-national, two qualities 
concerning which Goodman Deans had as wholesome a terror 
as against Papists and Malignants. Above all, for Douce Davie 
Deans had his weak side, he perceived that widow Butler 
looked up to him with reverence, listened to his advice, and 
compounded for an occasional fling at the doctrines of her de- 
ceased husband, to which, as we have seen, she was by no means 
warmly attached, in consideration of the valuable counsels 
which the Presbyterian afforded her for the management of her 
little farm. These usually concluded with, ‘ they may do other- 
wise in England, neighbour Butler, for aught I ken ’ ; or, ‘ it may 
be different in foreign parts ’ ; or, ‘ they wha think differently on 
the great foundation of our covenanted reformation, overturn- 
ing and misguggling the government and discipline of the 
kirk, and breaking down the carved work of our Zion, might 
be for sawing the craft wi’ aits ; but I say pease, pease.’ 
And as his advice was shrewd and sensible, though con- 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


79 


; ceitedly given, it was received with gratitude, and followed 
I with respect. 

The intercourse which took place betwixt the families at 
I Beersheba and Woodend became strict and intimate, at a very 
[ early period, betwixt Reuben Butler, w’ith w'hom the reader is 
already in some degree acquainted, and Jeanie Deans, the only 
child of Douce Davie Deans by his first wife, ‘that singular 
Christian woman,’ as he was wont to express himself, ‘whose 
name was savoury to all that knew her for a desirable professor, 

' Christian Menzies in Hochmagirdle.’ The manner of which 
intimacy, and the consequences thereof, "we now proceed to 
relate. 


CHAPTER IX 


Reuben and Rachel, though as fond as doves, 

Were yet discreet and cautious in their loves, 
hTor would attend to Cupid’s wild commands. 

Till cool reflection bade them join their hands. 

When both were poor, they thought it argued ill 
Of hasty love to make them poorer still. 

Cuabbe’s Parish Register. 

While widow Butler and widower Deans struggled with poverty, 
and the hard and sterile soil of those ‘ parts and portions ’ of the 
lands of Dumbiedikes which it was their lot to occupy, it became 
gradually apparent that Deans was to gain the strife, and his 
ally in the conflict was to lose it. The former was a man, and 
not much past the prime of life; Mrs. Butler a woman, and 
declined into the vale of years. This, indeed, ought in time 
to have been balanced by the circumstance that Reuben was 
growing up to assist his grandmother’s labours, and that Jeanie 
Deans, as a girl, could be only supposed to add to her father’s 
burdens. But Douce Davie Deans knew better things, and so 
schooled and trained the young minion, as he called her, that 
from the time she could walk, upwards, she was daily employed 
in some task or other suitable to her age and capacity ; a circum- 
stance which, added to her father’s daily instructions and 
lectures, tended to give her mind, even when a child, a grave, 
serious, firm, and reflecting cast. An uncommonly strong and 
healthy temperament free from all nervous affection and every 
other irregularity, which, attacking the body in its more noble 
functions, so often influences the mind, tended greatly to estab- 
lish this fortitude, simplicity, and decision of character. 

On the other hand, Reuben was weak in constitution, and, 
though not timid in temper, might be safely pronounced anxious, 
doubtful, and apprehensive. He partook of the temperament 
of his mother, Avho had died of a consumption in early age. 
He was a pale, thin, feeble, sickly boy, and somewhat lame, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


81 


from an accident in early youth. He was, besides, the child of 
a doting grandmother, whose too solicitous attention to him 
soon taught him a sort of diffidence in himself, with a disposition 
to overrate his own importance, which is one of the very worst 
consequences that children deduce from over-indulgence. 

Still, however, the two children clung to each other’s society, 

I not more from habit than from taste. They herded together 
the handful of sheep, with the two or three cows, which their 
parents turned out rather to seek food than actually to feed 
upon the uninclosed common of Dumbiedikes. It was there 
that the two urchins might be seen seated beneath a blooming 
bush of whin, their little faces laid close together under the 
shadow of the same plaid drawn over both their heads, while 
the landscape around was embrowned by an overshadowing 
cloud, big with the shower which had driven the children to 
shelter. On other occasions they went together to school, the 
boy receiving that encouragement and example from his com- 
panion, in crossing the little brooks which intersected their 
path, and encountering cattle, dogs, and other perils upon their 
journey, which the male sex in such cases usually consider it 
as their prerogative to extend to the weaker. But when, seated 
on the benches of the school-house, they began to con their 
lessons together, Reuben, who was as much superior to Jeanie 
Deans in acuteness of intellect as inferior to her in firmness of 
constitution, and in that insensibility to fatigue and danger 
which depends on the conformation of the nerves, was able 
fully to requite the kindness and countenance with which, in 
other circumstances, she used to regard him. He was decidedly 
the best scholar at the little parish school ; and so gentle was 
his temper and disposition, that he was rather admired than 
envied by the little mob who occupied the noisy mansion, 
although he was the declared favourite of the master. Several 
girls, in particular (for in Scotland they are taught with the 
i boys), longed to be kind to and comfort the sickly lad, who 
i was so much cleverer than his companions. The character of 
Reuben Butler was so calculated as to offer scope both for their 
S3unpathy and their admiration, the feelings, perhaps, through 
which the female sex, the more deserving part of them at least, 
is more easily attached. 

But Reuben, naturally reserved and distant, improved none 
of these advantages ; and only became more attached to J eanie 
Deans, as the enthusiastic approbation of his master assured 
him of fair prospects in future life, and awakened his ambition. 

6 


VII 


82 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


In the meantime, every advance that Reuben made in learn- 
ing (and, considering his opportunities, they were uncommonly 
great) rendered him less capable of attending to the domestic 
duties of his grandmother’s farm. While studying the jpons 
asinorum in Euclid, he suffered every ‘cuddie’ upon the common 
to trespass upon a large field of pease belonging to the- Laird, 
and nothing but the active exertions of Jeanie Deans, with her 
little dog Dustiefoot, could have saved great loss and consequent 
punishment. Similar miscarriages marked his progress in his 
classical studies. He read Virgil’s Georgies till he did not know 
bear from barley ; and had nearly destroyed the crofts of Beer- 
sheba while attempting to cultivate them according to the 
practice of Columella and Cato the Censor. 

These blunders occasioned grief to his grand-dame, and dis- 
concerted the good opinion which her neighbour, Davie Deans, 
had for some time entertained of Reuben. 

‘ I see naething ye can make of that silly callant, neighbour 
Butler,’ said he to the old lady, ‘unless ye train him to the 
wark o’ the ministry. And ne’er was there mair need of poorfu’ 
preachers than e’en now in these cauld Gallio days, when men’s 
hearts are hardened like the nether millstone, till they come to 
regard none of these things. It’s evident this puir callant of 
yours will never be able to do an usefu’ day’s wark, unless it be 
as an ambassador from our Master ; and I will make it my busi- 
ness to procure a license when he is fit for the same, trusting 
he will be a shaft cleanly polished, and meet to be used in the 
body of the kirk, and that he shall not turn again, like the 
sow, to wallow in the mire of heretical extremes and defections, 
but shall have the wings of a dove, though he hath lain among 
the pots.’ 

The poor widow gulped down the affront to her husband’s 
principles implied in this caution, and hastened to take Butler 
from the High School, and encourage him in the pursuit of 
mathematics and divinity, the only physics and ethics that 
chanced to be in fashion at the time. 

Jeanie Deans was now compelled to part from the com- 
panion of her labour, her study, and her pastime, and it was 
with more than childish feeling that both children regarded the 
separation. But they were young, and hope was high, and 
they separated like those who hope to meet again at a more 
auspicious hour. 

While Reuben Butler was acquiring at the University of St. 
Andrews the knowledge necessary for a clergyman, and macer- 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


83 


ating his body with the privations which were necessary in seek- 
ing food for his mind, his grand-dame became daily less able to 
struggle with her little farm, and was at length obliged to throw 
it up to the new Laird of Dumbiedikes. That great personage 
was no absolute Jew, and did not cheat her in making the 
bargain more than was tolerable. He even gave her permission 
to tenant the house in which she had lived with her husband, as 
long as it should be ‘ tenantable ’ ; only he protested against 
paying for a farthing of repairs, any benevolence which he 
possessed being of the passive, but by no means of the active 
mood. 


In the meanwhile, from superior shrewdness, skill, and other 
circumstances, some of them purely accidental, Davie Deans 
gained a footing in the world, the possession of some wealth, 
the reputation of more, and a growing disposition to preserve 
and increase his store, for which, when he thought upon it 
seriously, he was inclined to blame himself. From his know- 
ledge in agriculture, as it was then practised, he became a sort 
of favourite with the Laird, who had no pleasure either in active 
sports or in society, and was wont to end his daily saunter by 
calling at the cottage of Wood end. 

Being himself a man of slow ideas and confused utterance, 
Dumbiedikes used to sit or stand for half an hour with an old 
laced hat of his father’s upon his head, and an empty tobacco- 
pipe in his mouth, with his eyes following Jeanie Deans, or ‘the 
lassie,’ as he called her, through the course of her daily domestic 
labour ; while her father, after exhausting the subject of bestial, 
of ploughs, and of harrows, often took an opportunity of going 
full -sail into controversial subjects, to which discussions the 
dignitary listened with much seeming patience, but without 
making any reply, or, indeed, as most people thought, without 
understanding a single word of what the orator was saying. 
Deans, indeed, denied this stoutly, as an insult at once to his 
own talents for expounding hidden truths, of which he was a 
little vain, and to the Laird’s capacity of understanding them. 
He said, ‘Dumbiedikes was nane of these flashy gentles, wi’ 
lace on their skirts and swords at their tails, that were rather 
for riding on horseback to hell than ganging barefooted to 
Heaven. He wasna like his father — nae profane company- 
keeper, nae swearer, nae drinker, nae frequenter of play-house, 
or music -house, or dancing -house, nae Sabbath -breaker, nae 
imposer of aiths, or bonds, or denier of liberty to the flock. 
He clave to the warld, and the warld’s gear, a wee ower muckle, 


84 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


but then there was some breathing of a gale upon his spirit/ j 
‘etc. etc. All this honest Davie said and believed. | 

It is not to be supposed that, by a father and a man of | 
sense and observation, the constant direction of the Laird’s eyes | 
towards Jeanie was altogether unnoticed. This circumstance, 
however, made a much greater impression upon another member ! 
of his family, a second helpmate, to wit, whom he had chosen j 
to take to his bosom ten years after the death of his first. ; 
Some people were of opinion that Douce Davie had been rather ; 
surprised into this step, for in general he was no friend to \ 
marriages or giving in marriage, and seemed rather to regard ; 
that state of society as a necessary evil — a thing lawful, and i 
to be tolerated in the imperfect state of our nature, but which . 
clipped the wings with which we ought to soar upwards, and > 
tethered the soul to its mansion of clay, and the creature- ; 
comforts of wife and bairns. His own practice, however, had 1 
in this material point varied from his principles, since, as we ■ 
have seen, he twice knitted for himself this dangerous and 
ensnaring entanglement. 

Rebecca, his spouse, haR by no means the same horror of I 
matrimony, and as she made mamages in imagination for every 
neighbour round, she failed not to indicate a match betwixt 
Dumbiedikes and her stepdaughter Jeanie. The goodman 
used regularly to frown and pshaw whenever this topic was 
touched upon, but usually ended by taking his bonnet and I 
walking out of the house to conceal a certain gleam of satis- 
faction which, at such a suggestion, involuntarily diffused itself 
over his austere features. 

The more youthful part of my readers may naturally ask 
whether Jeanie Deans was deserving of this mute attention of 
the Laird of Dumbiedikes ; and the historian, with due regard 
to veracity, is compelled to answer that her personal attractions 
were of no uncommon description. She was short, and rather 
too stoutly made for her size, had grey eyes, light-coloured hair, 
a round good-humoured face, much tanned with the sun, and 
her only peculiar charm was an air of inexpressible serenity, j 
which a good conscience, kind feelings, contented temper, and i 
the regular discharge of all her duties, spread over her features. , 
There was nothing, it may be supposed, very appalling in the j 
form or manners of this rustic heroine ; yet, whether from 
sheepish bashfulness, or from want of decision and imperfect * 
knowledge of his own mind on the subject, the Laird of Dumbie- 
dikes, with his old laced hat and empty tobacco-pipe, came and 









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THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


85 


enjoyed the beatific vision of Jeanie Deans day after day, week 
after week, year after year, without proposing to accomplish 
any of the prophecies of the stepmother. 

This good lady began to grow doubly impatient on the 
subject when, after having been some years married, she her- 
self presented Douce Davie with another daughter, who was 
named Euphemia, by corruption, Effie. It was then that 
Rebecca began to turn impatient with the slow pace at which 
the Laird’s wooing proceeded, judiciously arguing that, as Lady 
Dumbiedikes would have but little occasion for tocher, the 
principal part of her gudeman’s substance would naturally 
descend to the child by the second marriage. Other step- 
dames have tried less laudable means for clearing the way to 
the succession of their own children ; but Rebecca, to do her 
justice, only sought little Effie’s advantage through the pro- 
motion, or which must have generally been accounted such, of 
her elder sister. She therefore tried every female art within 
the compass of her simple skill to bring the Laird to a point ; 
but had the mortification to perceive that her efforts, like 
those of an unskilful angler, only scared the trout she meant 
to catch. Upon one occasion, in particular, when she joked 
with the Laird on the propriety of giving a mistress to the 
house of Dumbiedikes, he wJis so effectually startled that 
neither laced hat, tobacco-pipe, nor the intelligent proprietor 
of these movables, visited Woodend for a fortnight. Rebecca 
was therefore compelled to leave the Laird to proceed at his 
own snail’s pace, convinced by experience of the grave-digger’s 
aphorism, that your dull ass will not mend his pace for 
beating. 

Reuben in the meantime pursued his studies at the uni- 
versity, supplying his wants by teaching the younger lads the 
knowledge he himself acquired, and thus at once gaining the 
means of maintaining himself at the seat of learning and fixing 
in his mind the elements of what he had already obtained. 
In this manner, as is usual among the poorer students of 
divinity at Scottish universities, he contrived not only to 
maintain himself according to his simple wants, but even to 
send considerable assistance to his sole remaining parent, a 
sacred duty of which the Scotch are seldom negligent. His 
progress in knowledge of a general kind, as well as in the 
studies proper to his profession, was very considerable, but 
was little remarked, owing to the retired modesty of his dis- 
position, which in no respect qualified him to set off his learning 


86 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


to the best advantage. And thus, had Butler been a man 
*given to make complaints, he had his tale to tell, like others, 
of unjust preferences, bad luck, and hard usage. On these sub- 
jects, however, he was habitually silent, perhaps from modesty, 
perhaps from a touch of pride, or perhaps from a conjunction 
of both. 

He obtained his license as a preacher of the Gospel, with 
some compliments from the presbytery by whom it was be- 
stowed ; but this did not lead to any preferment, and he found 
it necessary to make the cottage at Beersheba his residence 
for some months, with no other income than was afforded by 
the precarious occupation of teaching in one or other of the 
neighbouring families. After having greeted his aged grand- 
mother, his first visit was to Wood end, where he was received 
by Jeanie with warm cordiality, arising from recollections 
which had never been dismissed from her mind, by Rebecca 
with good-humoured hospitality, and by old Deans in a mode 
peculiar to himself. 

Highly as Douce Davie honoured the clergy, it was not 
upon each individual of the cloth that he bestowed his appro- 
bation ; and, a little jealous, perhaps, at seeing his youthful 
acquaintance erected into the dignity of a teacher and preacher, 
he instantly attacked him upon various points of controversy, 
in order to discover whether he might not have fallen into some 
of the snares, defections, and desertions of the time. Butler 
was not only a man of stanch Presbyterian principles, but was 
also willing to avoid giving pain to his old friend by disput- 
ing upon points of little importance ; and therefore he might 
have hoped to have come like refined gold out of the furnace 
of Davie’s interrogatories. But the result on the mind of that 
strict investigator was not altogether so favourable as might 
have been hoped and anticipated. Old Judith Butler, who 
had hobbled that evening as far as Woodend, in order to 
enjoy the congratulations of her neighbours upon Reuben’s 
return, and upon his high attainments, of which she was her- 
self not a little proud, was somewhat mortified to find that 
her old friend Deans did not enter into the subject with the 
warmth she expected. At first, indeed, he seemed rather silent 
than dissatisfied ; and it was not till Judith had essayed the 
subject more than once that it led to the following dialogue : — 

‘ Aweel, neibor Deans, I thought ye wad hae been glad to 
see Reuben amang us again, poor fallow.’ 

‘ I am glad, Mrs. Butler,’ was the neighbour’s concise answer. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 87 

^ Since he has lost his grandfather and his father — j^raised 
be Him that giveth and taketh ! — I ken nae friend he has in 
the world that’s been sae like a father to him as the sell o’ 
ye, neibor Deans.’ 

‘ God is the only Father of the fatherless,’ said Deans, touch- 
ing his bonnet and looking upwards. ‘ Give honour where it is 
due, gudewife, and not to an unworthy instrument.’ 

‘Aweel, that’s your way o’ turning it, and nae doubt ye 
ken best. But I hae kenn’d ye, Davie, send a forpit o’ meal to 
Beersheba when there wasna a bow left in the meal -ark at 
Woodend ; ay, and I hae kenn’d ye ’ 

‘Gudewife,’ said Davie, interrupting her, ‘these are but 
idle tales to tell me, fit for naething but to puff up our 
inward man wi’ our ain vain acts. I stude beside blessed 
Alexander Peden, when I heard him call the death and testi- 
mony of our happy martyrs but draps of bluid and scarts of 
ink in respect of fitting discharge of our duty ; and what suld 
I think of ony thing the like of me can do ? ’ 

‘Weel, neibor Deans, ye ken best; but I maun say that I 
am sure you are glad to see my bairn again. The halt’s gane 
now, unless he has to walk ower mony miles at a stretch ; and 
he has a wee bit colour in his cheek, that glads my auld een 
to see it ; and he has as decent a black coat as the minister ; 
and ’ 

‘ I am very heartily glad he is weel and thriving,’ said Mr. 
Deans, with a gravity that seemed intended to cut short the 
subject ; but a woman who is bent upon a point is not easily 
pushed aside from it. 

‘And,’ continued Mrs. Butler, ‘he can wag his head in a 
pulpit now, neibor Deans, think but of that — my ain oe — and 
a’body maun sit still and listen to him, as if he were the Paip 
of Rome.’ 

‘The what? the who, woman?’ said Deans, with a stern- 
ness far beyond his usual gravity, as soon as these offensive 
words had struck upon the tympanum of his ear. 

‘ Eh, guide us ! ’ said the poor woman ; ‘ I had forgot what 
an ill will ye had aye at the Paip, and sae had my puir gudeman, 
Stephen Butler. Mony an afternoon he wad sit and take up 
his testimony again the Paip, and again baptizing of bairns, and 
the like.’ 

‘Woman,’ reiterated Deans, ‘either speak about what ye 
ken something o’, or be silent. I say that Independency is a 
foul heresy, and Anabaptism a damnable and deceiving error. 


88 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


whilk suld be rooted out of the land \vi’ the fire o’ the spiritual 
and the sword o’ the civil magistrate.’ 

‘Weel, weel, neibor, I’ll no say that ye mayna be right,’ 
answered the submissive Judith. ‘ I am sure ye are right 
about the sawing and the mawing, the shearing and the leading, 
and what for suld ye no be right about kirk-wark, too ? But 
concerning my oe, Reuben Butler ’ 

‘ Reuben Butler, gudewife,’ said David with solemnity, ‘ is a 
lad I wish heartily weel to, even as if he were mine ain son ; 
but I doubt there will be outs and ins in the track of his walk. 
I muckle fear his gifts will get the heels of his grace. He has 
ower muckle human wit and learning, and thinks as muckle 
about the form of the bicker as he does about the healsomeness 
of the food ; he maun broider the marriage-garment with lace 
and passments, or it’s no gude enough for him. And it’s like 
he’s something proud o’ his human gifts and learning, whilk 
enables him to dress up his doctrine in that fine airy dress. 
But,’ added he, at seeing the old woman’s uneasiness at his 
discourse, ‘ affliction may gie him a jagg, and let the wind out 
o’ him, as out o’ a cow that’s eaten wet clover, and the lad may 
do weel, and be a burning and a shining light ; and I trust it 
will be yours to see, and his to feel it, and that soon.’ 

Widow Butler was obliged to retire, unable to make anything 
more of her neighbour, whose discourse, though she did not 
comprehend it, filled her with undefined apprehensions on her 
grandson’s account, and greatly depressed the joy with which 
she had welcomed him on his return. And it must not be 
concealed, in justice to Mr. Deans’s discernment, that Butler, in 
their conference, had made a greater display of his learning 
than the occasion called for, or than was likely to be accept- 
able to the old man, who, accustomed to consider himself as 
a person pre-eminently entitled to dictate upon theological 
subjects of controversy, felt rather humbled and mortified 
when learned authorities were placed in array against him. 
In fact, Butler had not escaped the tinge of pedantry which 
naturally flowed from his education, and was apt, on many 
occasions, to make parade of his knowledge, when there was no 
need of such vanity. 

Jeanie Deans, however, found no fault with this display of 
learning, but, on the contrary, admired it; perhaps on the 
same score that her sex are said to admire men of courage, on 
account of their own deficiency in that qualification. The 
circumstances of their families threw the young people con- 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


89 


stantly together ; their old intimacy was renewed, though upon 
a footing better adapted to their age ; and it became at length 
understood betwixt them that their union should be deferred 
no longer than until Butler should obtain some steady means 
of support, however humble. This, however, was not a matter 
speedily to be accomplished. Plan after plan was' formed, and 
plan after plan failed. The good-humoured cheek of Jeanie lost 
the first flush of juvenile freshness; Reuben’s brow assumed 
the gravity of manhood ; yet the means of obtaining a settle- 
ment seemed remote as ever. Fortunately for the lovers, their 
passion was of no ardent or enthusiastic cast ; and a sense 
of duty on both sides induced them to bear with patient 
fortitude the protracted interval which divided them from 
each other. 

In the meanwhile, time did not roll on without effecting his 
usual changes. The widow of Stephen Butler, so long the prop 
of the family of Beersheba, was gathered to her fathers ; and 
Rebecca, the careful spouse of our friend Davie Deans, was also 
summoned from her plans of matrimonial and domestic economy. 
The morning after her death, Reuben Butler went to offer his 
mite of consolation to his old friend and benefactor. He 
Avitnessed, on this occasion, a remarkable struggle betwixt the 
force of natural affection and the religious stoicism which the 
sufferer thought it was incumbent upon him to maintain under 
each earthly dispensation, whether of weal or woe. 

On his arrival at the cottage, Jeanie, with her eyes over- 
flowing with tears, pointed to the little orchard, ‘ in which,’ 
she whispered with broken accents, ‘ my poor father has been 
since his misfortune.’ SomeAvhat alarmed at this account, 
Butler entered the orchard, and advanced slowly towards his 
old friend, who, seated in a small rude arbour, appeared to be 
sunk in the extremity of his affliction. He lifted his eyes 
somewhat sternly as Butler approached, as if offended at the 
interruption ; but as the young man hesitated whether he 
ought to retreat or advance, he arose and came forward to 
meet him with a self-possessed and even dignified air. 

‘Young man,’ said the sufferer, ‘lay it not to heart though 
the righteous perish and the merciful are removed, seeing, it 
may well be said, that they are taken aAvay from the evils to 
come. Woe to me, were I to shed a tear for the wife of my 
bosom, when I might weep rivers of water for this afilicted 
church, cursed as it is with carnal seekers and with the dead 
of heart.’ 


90 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ I am happy,’ said Butler, ‘ that you can forget your private 
alfliction in your regard for public duty.’ 

‘Forget, Reuben r said poor Deans, putting his handker- 
chief to his eyes. ‘ She’s not to be forgotten on this side of 
time ; but He that gives the wound can send the ointment. I 
declare there have been times during this night when my medi- 
tation has been so wrapt that I knew not of my heavy loss. 
It has been with me as with the worthy John Semple, called 
Carspharn John,* upon a like trial : I have been this night on 
the banks of Ulai, plucking an apple here and there.’ 

Notwithstanding the assumed fortitude of Deans, which he 
conceived to be the discharge of a great Christian duty, he had 
too good a heart not to suffer deeply under this heavy loss. 
Woodend became altogether distasteful to him ; and as he had 
obtained both substance and experience by his management of 
that little farm, he resolved to employ them as a dairy-farmer, 
or cow-feeder, as they are called in Scotland. The situation 
he chose for his new settlement was at a place called St. 
Leonard’s Crags, lying betwixt Edinburgh and the mountain 
called Arthur’s Seat, and adjoining to the extensive sheep 
pasture still named the King’s Park, from its having been 
formerly dedicated to the preservation of the royal game. Here 
he rented a small lonely house, about half a mile distant from 
the nearest point of the city, but the site of which, with all the 
adjacent ground, is now occupied by the buildings which form 
the south-eastern suburb. An extensive pasture-ground adjoin- 
ing, which Deans rented from the keeper of the Royal Park, 
enabled him to feed his milk-cows ; and the unceasing industry 
and activity of Jeanie, his eldest daughter, was exerted in mak- 
ing the most of their produce. 

She had now less frequent opportunities of seeing Reuben, 
who had been obliged, after various disappointments, to accept 
the subordinate situation of assistant in a parochial school of 
some eminence, at three or four miles’ distance from the city. 
Here he distinguished himself, and became acquainted with 
several respectable burgesses, who, on account of health or 
other reasons, chose that their children should commence their 
education in this little village. His prospects were thus gradu- 
ally brightening, and upon each visit which he paid at St. 
Leonard’s he had an opportunity of gliding a hint to this pur- 
pose into Jeanie’s ear. These visits were necessarily very rare, 
on account of the demands which the duties of the school made 

* See Note 15. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


91 


upon Butler’s time. Nor did he dare to make them even alto- 
gether so frequent as these avocations would peraiit. Deans 
received him with civility indeed, and even with kindness ; but 
Reuben, as is usual in such cases, imagined that he read his 
purpose in his eyes, and was afraid too premature an explana- 
tion on the subject would draw down his positive disapproval. 
Upon the whole, therefore, he judged it prudent to call at 
St. Leonard’s just so frequently as old acquaintance and neigh- 
bourhood seemed to authorise, and no oftener. There was 
another person who was more regular in his visits. 

When Davie Deans intimated to the Laird of Dumbiedikes 
his purpose of ‘ quitting wi’ the land and house at Woodend,’ 
the Laird stared and said nothing. He made his usual visits 
at the usual hour without remark, until the day before the 
term, vrhen, observing the bustle of moving furniture already 
commenced, the great east-country ‘ awmrie ’ dragged out of its 
nook, and standing with its shoulder to the company, like ah 
awkward booby about to leave the room, the Laird again stared 
mightily, and was heard to ejaculate, ‘ Hegh, sirs ! ’ Even after 
the day of departure was past and gone, the Laird of Dumbie- 
dikes, at his usual hour, which was that at which David Deans 
was wont to ‘ loose the pleugh,’ presented himself before the 
closed door of the cottage at Woodend, and seemed as much 
astonished at finding it shut against his approach as if it was 
not exactly what he had to expect. On this occasion he was 
heard to ejaculate, ‘ Gude guide us ! ’ which, by those who knew 
him, was considered as a very unusual mark of emotion. From 
that moment forward, Dumbiedikes became an altered man, 
and the regularity of his movements, hitherto so exemplary, 
was as totally disconcerted as those of a boy’s watch when he 
has broken the main-spring. Like the index of the said watch, ^ 
did Dumbiedikes spin round the whole bounds of his little 
property, which may be likened unto the dial of the timepiece, 
with unwonted velocity. There was not a cottage into which 
he did not enter, nor scarce a maiden on whom he did not stare. 
But so it was, that, although there were better farm-houses on 
the land than Woodend, and certainly much prettier girls than 
Jeanie Deans, yet it did somehow befall that the blank in the 
Laird’s time was not so pleasantly filled up as it had been. 
There was no seat accommodated him so well as the ‘ bunker ’ at 
Woodend, and no face he loved so much to gaze on as Jeanie 
Deans’s. So, after spinning round and round his little orbit, 
and then remaining stationary for a week, it seems to have 


92 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


occurred to him that he was not pinned down to circulate on 
a pivot, like the hands of the watch, but possessed the power 
of shifting his central point and extending his circle if he 
thought proper. To realise which privilege of change of place, 
he bought a pony from a Highland drover, and with its assist- 
ance and company stepped, or rather stumbled, as far as St. 
Leonard’s Crags. 

Jeanie Deans, though so much -accustomed to the Laird’s 
staring that she was sometimes scarce conscious of his presence, 
had nevertheless some occasional fears lest he should call in the 
organ of speech to back those expressions of admiration which 
he bestowed on her through his eyes. Should this happen, 
farewell, she thought, to all chance of an union with Butler. 
For her father, however stout-hearted and independent in civil 
and religious principles, was not without that respect for the 
laird of the land so deeply imprinted on the Scottish tenantry 
of the period. Moreover, if he did not positively dislike Butler, 
yet his fund of carnal learning was often the object of sar- 
casms on David’s part, which were perhaps founded in jealousy, 
and which certainly indicated no partiality for the party against 
whom they were launched. And, lastly, the match with Dumbie- 
dikes would have presented irresistible charms to one who used 
to complain that he felt himself apt to take ‘ ower grit an armfu’ 
o’ the warld.’ So that, upon the whole, the Laird’s diurnal 
visits were disagreeable to Jeanie from apprehension of future 
consequences, and it served much to console her, upon removing 
from the spot where she was bred and born, that she had seen 
the last of Dumbiedikes, his laced hat, and tobacco-pipe. The 
poor girl no more expected he could muster courage to follow 
her to St. Leonard’s Crags than that any of her apple-trees or 
cabbages, which she had left rooted in the ‘ yard ’ at Woodend, 
would spontaneously, and unaided, have undertaken the same 
journey. It was, therefore, with much more surprise than 
pleasure that, on the sixth day after their removal to St. 
Leonard’s, she beheld Dumbiedikes arrive, laced hat, tobacco- 
pipe, and all, and, with the self-same greeting of ‘ How’s a’ wi’ 
ye, Jeanie? Whare’s the gudeman?’ assume as nearly as he 
could the same position in the cottage at St. Leonard’s which 
he had so long and so regularly occupied at Woodend. He 
was no sooner, however, seated than, with an unusual exertion 
of his powers of conversation, he added, ‘Jeanie — I say, Jeanie, 
woman ’ ; here he extended his hand towards her shoulder with 
all the fingers spread out as if to clutch it, but in so bashful 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


93 


and awkward a manner that, when she whisked herself beyond 
its reach, the paw remained suspended in the air with the palm 
open, like the claw of a heraldic griffin. ‘ Jeanie,’ continued the 
swain, in this moment of inspiration — ‘ I say, Jeanie, it’s a braw 
day out-bye, and the roads are no that ill for boot-hose.’ 

‘The deil’s in the daidling body,’ muttered Jeanie between 
her teeth; ‘wha wad hae thought o’ his daikering out this 
length ? ’ And she afterwards confessed that she threw a little 
of this ungracious sentiment into her accent and manner ; for 
her father being abroad, and the ‘body,’ as she irreverently 
termed the landed proprietor, ‘looking unco gleg and canty, 
she didna ken what he might be coming out wi’ next.’ 

Her frowns, however, acted as a complete sedative, and the 
Laird relapsed from that day into his former taciturn habits, 
visiting the cow-feeder’s cottage three or four times every week, 
when the weather permitted, with apparently no other purpose 
than to stare at Jeanie Deans, while Douce Davie poured forth 
his eloquence upon the controversies and testimonies of the day. 


CHAPTER X 


Her air, her manners, all who saw admired, 

' Courteous, though coy, and gentle, though retired ; 

The joy of youth and health her eyes display’d, 

And ease of heart her every look convey’d. 

Ceabbe. 

The visits of the Laird thus again sunk into matters of ordinary 
course, from which nothing was to be expected or apprehended. 
If a lover could have gained a fair one as a snake is said to 
fascinate a bird, by pertinaciously gazing on her with great 
stupid greenish eyes, which began now to be occasionally aided 
by spectacles, unquestionably Dumbiedikes would have been 
the person to perform the feat. But the art of fascination 
seems among the artes perditoe, and I cannot learn that this 
most pertinacious of starers produced any effect by his atten- 
tions beyond an occasional yawn. 

In the meanwhile, the object of his gaze was gradually attain- 
ing the verge of youth, and approaching to what is called in 
females the middle age, which is impolitely held to begin a few 
years earlier with their more fragile sex than with men. Many 
people would have been of opinion that the Laird would have 
done better to have transferred his glances to an object pos- 
sessed of far superior charms to Jeanie’s, even when Jeanie’s 
were in their bloom, who began now to be distinguished by all 
who visited the cottage at St. Leonard’s Crags. 

Effie Deans, under the tender and affectionate care of her 
sister, had now shot up into a beautiful and blooming girl. 
Her Grecian-shaped head was profusely rich in waving ringlets 
of brown hair, which, confined by a blue snood of silk, and 
shading a laughing Hebe countenance, seemed the picture of 
health, pleasure, and contentment. Her brown russet short- 
gown set off a shape which time, perhaps, might be expected 
to render too robust, the frequent objection to Scottish beauty, 
but which, in her present early age, was slender and taper, with 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


95 


that graceful and easy sweep of outline which at once indicates 
health and beautiful proportion of parts. 

These growing charms, in all their juvenile profusion, had 
no power to shake the steadfast mind, or divert the fixed gaze, 
of the constant Laird of Dumbiedikes. But there was scarce 
another eye that could behold this living picture of health and 
beauty without pausing on it with pleasure. The traveller 
stopped his weary horse on the eve of entering the city which 
was the end of his journey, to gaze at the sylph-like form that 
tripped by him, with her milk-pail poised on her head, hearing 
herself so erect, and stepping so light and free under her burden, 
that it seemed rather an ornament than an encumbrance. The 
lads of the neighbouring suburb, who held their evening rendez- 
vous for putting the stone, casting the hammer, playing at 
long bowls, and other athletic exercises, watched the motions 
of Effie Deans, and contended with each other which should 
have the good fortune to attract her attention. Even the rigid 
Presbyterians of her father’s persuasion, who held each indul- 
gence of the eye and sense to be a snare at least, if not a crime, 
were surprised into a moment’s delight while gazing on a 
creature so exquisite — instantly checked by a sigh, reproaching 
at once their own weakness, and mourning that a creature so 
fair should share in the common and hereditary guilt and 
imperfection of our nature. She was currently entitled the 
Lily of St. Leonard’s, a name which she deseiwed as much by 
her guileless purity of thought, speech, and action as by her 
uncommon loveliness of face and person. 

Yet there were points in Effie’s character which gave rise 
not only to strange doubt and anxiety on the part of Douce 
David Deans, whose ideas were rigid, as may easily be supposed, 
upon the subject of youthful amusements, but even of serious 
apprehension to her more indulgent sister. The children of 
the Scotch of the inferior classes are usually spoiled by the 
early indulgence of their parents ; how, wherefore, and to what 
degree, the lively and instructive narrative of the amiable 
and accomplished authoress * of Glenhurnie has saved me and 
all future scribblers the trouble of recording. Effie had had 
a double share of this inconsiderate and misjudged kindness. 
Even the strictness of her father’s principles could not condemn 
the sports of infancy and childhood ; and to the good old man 
his younger daughter, the child of his old age, seemed a child 
for some years after she attained the years of womanhood, was 

* Sirs. Elizabeth Hamilton. 


96 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


still called the ‘ bit lassie ’ and ‘ little Effie,’ and was permitted 
to run up and down uncontrolled, unless upon the Sabbath or 
at the times of family worship. Her sister, with all the love 
and care of a mother, could not be supposed to possess the 
same authoritative influence ; and that which she had hitherto 
exercised became gradually limited and diminished as Efiie’s 
advancing years entitled her, in her own conceit at least, to the 
right of independence and free agency. With all the innocence 
and goodness of disposition, therefore, which we have described, 
the Lily of St. Leonard’s possessed a little fund of self-conceit 
and obstinacy, and some warmth and irritability of temper, 
partly natural perhaps, but certainly much increased by the 
unrestrained freedom of her childhood. Her character will be 
best illustrated by a cottage evening scene. 

The careful father was absent in his well -stocked byre, 
foddering those useful and patient animals on whose produce 
his living depended, and the summer evening was beginning to 
close in, when J eanie Deans began to be very anxious for the 
appearance of her sister, and to fear that she would not reach 
home before her father returned from the labour of the evening, 
when it was his custom to have ‘family exercise,’ and when 
she knew that Effie’s absence would give him the most serious 
displeasure. These apprehensions hung heavier upon her mind 
because, for several preceding evenings, Effie had disappeared 
about the same time, and her stay, at first so brief as scarce to 
be noticed, had been gradually protracted to half an hour, and 
an hour, and on the present occasion had considerably exceeded 
even this last limit. And now Jeanie stood at the door, with 
her hand before her eyes to avoid the rays of the level sun, 
and looked alternately along the various tracks which led 
towards their dwelling, to see if she could descry the nymph- 
like form of her sister. There was a wall and a stile which 
separated the royal domain, or King’s Park, as it is called, from 
the public road ; to this pass she frequently directed her 
attention, when she saw two persons appear there somewhat 
suddenly, as if they had walked close by the side of* the wall 
to screen themselves from observation. One of them, a man, 
drew back hastily; the other, a female, crossed the stile 
and advanced towards her. It was Effie. She met her sister 
with that affected liveliness of manner which, in her rank, 
and sometimes in those above it, females occasionally as- 
sume to hide surprise or confusion; and she carolled as she 
came — 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


97 


‘ The elfin knight sate on the brae, 

The broom grows bonny, the broom grows fair ; 

And by there came lilting a lady so gay, 

And we daurna gang down to the broom nae mair. ’ 

‘ Whisht, Efifie,’ said her sister ; ‘ our father’s coming out o’ 
the byre.’ The damsel stinted in her song. ‘ Whare hae ye 
been sae late at e’en ? ’ 

‘ It’s no late, lass,’ answered Efiie. 

‘ It’s chappit eight on every clock o’ the town, and the sun’s 
gaun down ahint the Corstorphine Hills. Whare can ye hae 
been sae late ? ’ 

‘ Nae gate,’ answered Effie. 

‘And wha was that parted wi’ you at the stile?' 

‘ Naebody,’ replied Eflfie once more. 

‘ Nae gate ! Naebody ! I wish it may be a right gate, and 
a right body, that keeps folk out sae late at e’en, Efifie.’ 

‘ What needs ye be aye speering then at folk ? ’ retorted 
Eflfie. ‘ I’m sure, if ye’ll ask nae questions, I’ll tell ye nae lees. 
I never ask what brings the Laird of Dumbiedikes glowering 
here like a wull-cat — only his een’s greener, and no sae gleg- 
day after day, till we are a’ like to gaunt our chafts aff.’ 

‘ Because ye ken very weel he comes to see our father,’ said 
Jeanie, in answer to this pert remark. 

‘And Dominie Butler — does he come to see our father, 
that’s sae taen wi’ his Latin words?’ said Eflfie, delighted to 
find that, by carrying the war into the enemy’s country, she 
could divert the threatened attack upon herself, and with the 
petulance of youth she pursued her triumph over her prudent 
elder sister. She looked at her with a sly air, in which there 
was something like irony, as she chanted, in a low but marked 
tone, a scrap of an old Scotch song — 

‘ Through the kirkycard 
I met wi’ the Laird ; 

The silly puir body he said me nae harm. 

But just ere ’twas dark, 

I met wi’ the clerk ’ — 

Here the songstress stopped, looked full at her sister, and, 
obseiwing the tear gather in her eyes, she suddenly flung her 
arms round her neck and kissed them away. Jeanie, though 
hurt and displeased, was unable to resist the caresses of this 
untaught child of nature, whose good and evil seemed to flow 
rather from impulse than from reflection. But as she returned 

7 


VII 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


the sisterly kiss, in token of perfect reconciliation, she could 
not suppress the gentle reproof — ‘ Effie, if ye will learn fule 
sangs, ye might make a kinder use of them.’ 

‘And so I might, Jeanie,’ continued the girl, clinging to her 
sister’s neck; ‘and I wish I had never learned ane o’ them, 
and I wish we had never come here, and I wish my tongue 
had been blistered or I had vexed ye.’ 

‘ Never mind that, Effie,’ replied the affectionate sister. ‘ I 
canna be muckle vexed wi’ ony thing ye say to me; but 0 
dinna vex our father ! ’ 

‘I will not — I will not,’ replied Effie; ‘and if there were as 
mony dances the morn’s night as there are merry dancers in 
the north firmament on a frosty e’en, I winna budge an inch 
to gang near ane o’ them.’ 

‘Dance !’ echoed Jeanie Deans in astonishment. ‘0, Effie, 
what could take ye to a dance ? ’ 

It is very possible that, in the communicative mood into 
which the Lily of St. Leonard’s was now surprised, she might 
have given her sister her unreserved confidence, and saved me 
• the pain of telling a melancholy tale ; but at the moment the 
woi’d ‘dance’ was uttered, it reached the ear of old David Deans, 
who had turned the corner of the house, and came upon his 
daughters ere they were aware of his presence. The word 
‘ prelate,’ or even the word ‘ pope,’ could hardly have produced so 
appalling an effect upon David’s ear ; for, of all exercises, that 
of dancing, which he termed a voluntary and regular fit of dis- 
traction, he deemed most destructive of serious thoughts, and 
the readiest inlet to all sort of licentiousness ; and he accounted 
the encouraging, and even permitting, assemblies or meetings, 
whether among those of high or low degree, for this fantastic 
and absurd purpose, or for that of dramatic representations, as 
one of the most flagrant proofs of defection and causes of wrath. 
The pronouncing of the word ‘ dance ’ by his own daughters, and 
at his own door, now drove him beyond the verge of patience. 

‘ Dance ! ’ he exclaimed. ‘ Dance — dance, said ye ? I daur ye, 
limmers that ye are, to name sic a word at my door-cheek ! It’s 
a dissolute profane pastime, practised by the Israelites only at 
their base and brutal worship of the Golden Calf at Bethel, and 
by the unhappy lass wha danced aff the head of John the 
Baptist, upon whilk chapter I will exercise this night for your 
farther instruction, since ye need it sae muckle, nothing doubt- 
ing that she has cause to rue the day, lang or this time, that e’er 
she suld hac shook a limb on sic an errand. Better for her to 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


99 


hae been bom a cripple, and carried frae door to door, like auld 
Bessie Bowie, begging bawbees, than to be a king’s daughter, 
fiddling and flinging the gate she did. I hae often wondered 
that ony ane that ever bent a knee for the right purpose should 
ever daur to crook a hough to fyke and fling at piper’s wind 
and fiddler’s squealing. And I bless God, with that singular 
worthy, Peter [Patrick] Walker,* the packman, at Bristo Port, 
that ordered my lot in my dancing days so that fear of my head 
and throat, dread of bloody rope and swift bullet, and trenchant 
swords and pain of boots and thumkins, cauld and hunger, wet- 
ness and weariness, stopped the lightness of my head and the 
wantonness of my feet. And now, if I hear ye, quean lassies, 
sae muckle as name dancing, or think there’s sic a thing in 
this warld as flinging to fiddler’s sounds and piper’s springs, as 
sure as my father’s spirit is with the just, ye shall be no more 
either charge or concern of mine ! Gang in, then — gang in, 
then, hinnies,’ he added, in a softer tone, for the tears of both 
daughters, but especially those of Effie, began to flow very 
fast — ‘gang in, dears, and we’ll seek grace to preserve us 
frae all manner of profane folly, whilk causeth to sin, and 
promoteth the kingdom of darkness, warring with the kingdom 
of light.’ 

The objurgation of David Deans, however well meant, was un- 
happily timed. It created a division of feelings in Efiie’s bosom, 
and deterred her from her intended confidence in her sister. 
‘ She wad hand me nae better than the dirt below her feet,’ 
said Effie to herself, ‘ were I to confess I hae danced Avi’ him four 
times on the green down-bye, and ance at Maggie Macqueen’s ; 
and she’ll maybe hing it ower my head that she’ll tell my father, 
and then she Avad be mistress and mair. But I’ll no gang back 
there again. I’m resolved I’ll no gang back. I’ll lay in a leaf 
of my Bible,! and that’s very near as if I had made an aith, 
that I Avinna gang back.’ And she kept her vow for a week, 
during Avhich she Avas unusually cross and fretful, blemishes 
Avhich had never before been observed in her temper, except 
during a moment of contradiction. 

There Avas something in all this so mysterious as consider- 
ably to alarm the prudent and affectionate Jeaiiie, the more so 
as she judged it unkind to her sister to mention to their father 
grounds of anxiety Avhich might arise from her OAvn imagination. 

* See Patrick Walker. Note 16. 

t This custom, of making a mark by folding a leaf in the party’s Bible when a 
solemn resolution is formed, is still held to be, in some sense, an appeal to Heaven for 
his or her sincerity. 


100 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Besides, her respect for the good old man did not prevent her 
from being aware that he was both hot-tempered and positive, 
and she sometimes suspected that he carried his dislike to 
youthful amusements beyond the verge that religion and reason 
demanded. Jeanie had sense enough to see that a sudden and 
severe curb upon her sister’s hitherto unrestrained freedom 
might be rather productive of harm than good, and that Effie, 
in the headstrong wilfulness of youth, was likely to make what 
might be overstrained in her father’s precepts an excuse to her- 
self for neglecting them altogether. In the higher classes a 
damsel, however giddy, is still under the dominion of etiquette, 
and subject to the surveillance of mammas and chaperons ; but 
the country girl, who snatches her moment of gaiety during the 
intervals of labour, is under no such guardianship or restraint, 
and her amusement becomes so much the more hazardous. 
Jeanie saw all this with much distress of mind, when a cir- 
cumstance occurred which appeared calculated to relieve her 
anxiety. 

Mrs. Saddletree, with whom our readers have already been 
made acquainted, chanced to be a distant relation of Douce 
David Deans, and as she was a woman orderly in her life and 
conversation, and, moreover, of good substance, a sort of ac- 
quaintance was formally kept up between the families. Now 
this careful dame, about a year and a half before our story com- 
mences, chanced to need, in the line of her profession, a better 
sort of servant, or rather shop-woman. ‘Mr. Saddletree,’ she 
said, ‘ was never in the shop when he could get his nose within 
the Parliament House, and it was an awkward thing for a 
woman-bgdy to be standing among bundles o’ barkened leather 
her lane, selling saddles and bridles ; and she had cast her eyes 
upon her far-awa’ cousin Effie Deans, as just the very sort of 
lassie she would want to keep her in countenance on such 
occasions.’ 

In this proposal there was much that pleased old David : 
there was bed, board, and bountith ; it was a decent situation ; 
the lassie would be under Mrs. Saddletree’s eye, who had an 
upright walk, and lived close by the Tolbooth Kirk, in which 
might still be heard the comforting doctrines of one of those 
few ministers of the Kirk of Scotland who had not bent the 
knee unto Baal, according to David’s expression, or become 
accessory to the course of national defections — union, toleration, 
patronages, and a bundle of prelatical Erastian oaths which had 
been imposed on the church since the Revolution, and particu- 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


101 


larly in the reign of ‘ the late woman,’ as he called Queen Anne, 
the last of that unhappy race of Stuarts. In the good man’s 
security concerning the soundness of the theological doctrine 
which his daughter was to hear, he was nothing disturbed on 
account of the snares of a different kind to which a creature so 
beautiful, young, and wilful might be exposed in the centre of 
a populous and corrupted city. The fact is, that he thought 
with so much horror on all approaches to irregularities of the 
nature most to be dreaded in such cases, that he would as soon 
have suspected and guarded against Effie’s being induced to 
become guilty of the crime of murder. He only regretted that 
she should live under the same roof with such a worldly-wise 
man as Bartoline Saddletree, whom David never suspected of 
being an ass as he was, but considered as one really endowed 
with all the legal knowledge to which he made pretension, and 
only liked him the worse for possessing it. The lawyers, especi- 
ally those amongst them who sate as ruling elders in the 
General Assembly of the Kirk, had been forward in promoting 
the measures of patronage, of the abjuration oath, and others, 
which in the opinion of David Deans were a breaking down of 
the carved w'ork of the sanctuary, and an intrusion upon the 
liberties of the kirk. Upon the dangers of listening to the 
doctrines of a legalised formalist, such as Saddletree, David 
gave his daughter many lectures ; so much so, that he had time 
to touch but slightly on the dangers of chambering, company- 
keeping, and promiscuous dancing, to which, at her time of life, 
most people would have thought Effie more exposed than to 
the risk of theoretical error in her religious faith. 

Jeanie parted from her sister with a mixed feeling of regret, 
and apprehension, and hope. She could not be so confident con- 
cerning Effie’s prudence as her father, for she had observed her 
more narrowly, had more sympathy with her feelings, and could 
better estimate the temptations to which she was exposed. On 
the other hand, Mrs. Saddletree was an observing, shrewd, 
notable woman, entitled to exercise over Effie the full authority 
of a mistress, and likely to do so strictly, yet with kindness. 
Her removal to Saddletree’s, it was most probable, would also 
serve to break off some idle acquaintances which Jeanie sus- 
pected her sister to have formed in the neighbouring suburb. 
Upon the whole, then, she viewed her departure from St. 
Leonard’s with pleasure, and it was not until the very moment 
of their parting for the first time in their lives, that she felt the 
full force of sisterly sorrow. While they repeatedly kissed each 


102 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


other’s cheeks and wrung each other’s hands, Jeanie took that 
moment of affectionate sympathy to press upon her sister the 
necessity of the utmost caution in her conduct while residing in 
Edinburgh. Effie listened, without once raising her large dark 
eyelashes, from which the drops fell so fast as almost to re- 
semble a fountain. At the conclusion she sobbed again, kissed 
her sister, promised to recollect all the good counsel she had 
given her, and they parted. 

During the first few weeks, Effie was all that her kinswoman 
expected, and even more. But with time there came a relaxa- 
tion of that early zeal which she manifested in Mrs. Saddletree’s 
service. To borrow once again from the poet who so correctly 
and beautifully describes living manners — 

Something there was, — what, none presumed to say, — 

Clouds lightly passing on a summer’s day ; 

Whispers and hints, which went from ear to ear. 

And mix’d reports no judg^ on earth could clear. 

During this interval, Mrs. Saddletree was sometimes displeased 
by Effie’s lingering when she was sent upon errands about the 
shop business, and sometimes by a little degree of impatience 
which she manifested at being rebuked on such occasions. But 
she good-naturedly allowed that the first was very natural to a 
girl to whom everything in Edinburgh was new, and the other 
was only the petulance of a spoiled child when subjected to the 
yoke of domestic discipline for the first time. Attention and 
submission could not be learned at once ; Holy-Rood was not 
built in a day ; use would make perfect. 

It seemed as if the considerate old lady had presaged truly. 
Ere many months had passed, Effie became almost wedded to 
her duties, though she no longer discharged them with the 
laughing cheek and light step which at first had attracted 
every customer. Her mistress sometimes observed her in tears ; 
but they were signs of secret sorrow, which she concealed as 
often as she saw them attract notice. Time wore on, her cheek 
grew pale, and her step heavy. The cause of these changes 
could not have escaped the matronly eye of Mrs. Saddletree, but 
she was chiefly confined by indisposition to her bedroom for a 
considerable time during the latter part of Effie’s service. This 
interval was marked by symptoms of anguish almost amounting 
to despair. The utmost efforts of the poor girl to command 
her fits of hysterical agony were often totally unavailing, and 
the mistakes which she made in the shop the while were so 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


103 


numerous and so provoking, that Bartoline Saddletree, who, 
during his wife’s illness, was obliged to take closer charge of 
the business than consisted with his study of the weightier 
matters of the law, lost all patience with the girl, who, in his 
law Latin, and without much respect to gender, he declared 
ought to be cognosced by inquest of a jury, as fatuiis^ furiosus, 
and naturaliter idiota. Neighbours, also, and fellow-servants, 
remarked, with malicious curiosity or degrading pity, the dis- 
figured shape, loose dress, and pale cheeks of the once beautiful 
and still interesting girl. But to no one would she grant 
her confidence, answering all taunts with bitter sarcasm, and 
all serious expostulation with sullen denial, or with floods of 
tears. 

At length, when Mrs. Saddletree’s recovery was likely to 
permit her wonted attention to the regulation of her household, 
Effie Deans, as if unwilling to face an investigation made by 
the authority of her mistress, asked permission of Bartoline to 
go home for a week or two, assigning indisposition, and the wish 
of trying the benefit of repose and the change of air, as the 
motives of her request. Sharp-eyed as a lynx, or conceiving 
himself to be so, in the nice sharp quillets of legal discussion, 
Bartoline was as dull at drawing inferences from the occurrences 
of common life as any Dutch professor of mathematics. He 
suffered Effie to depart without much suspicion, and without 
any inquiry. 

It was aftenvards found that a period of a week inter- 
vened betwixt her leaving her master’s house and arriving at 
St. Leonard’s. She made her appearance before her sister 
in a state rather resembling the spectre than the living sub- 
stance of the gay and beautiful girl who had left her father’s 
cottage for the first time scarce seventeen months before. The 
lingering illness of her mistress had, for the last few months, 
given her a plea for confining herself entirely to the dusky pre- 
cincts of the shop in the Lawnmarket, and Jeanie was so much 
occupied, during the same period, with the concerns of her 
father’s household, that she had rarely found leisure for a walk 
into the city, and a brief and hurried visit to her sister. The 
young women, therefore, had scarcely seen each other for several 
months, nor had a single scandalous surmise reached the ears 
of the secluded inhabitants of the cottage at St. Leonard’s. 
Jeanie, therefore, terrified to death at her sister’s appearance, 
at first overwhelmed her with inquiries, to which the unfortu- 
nate young woman returned for a time incoherent and rambling 


104 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


answers, and finally fell into a hysterical fit. Rendered too 
certain of her sister’s misfortune, Jeanie had now the dreadful f 
alternative of communicating her ruin to her father or of endea- 
vouring to conceal it from him. To all questions concerning the 
name or rank of her seducer, and the fate of the being to whom 
her fall had given birth, Effie remained mute as the grave, to 
which she seemed hastening ; and indeed the least allusion to 
either seemed to drive her to distraction. Her sister, in distress 
and in despair, was about to repair to Mrs. Saddletree to con- | 
suit her experience, and at the same time to obtain what lights I 
she could upon this most unhappy affair, when she was saved 
that trouble by a new stroke of fate, which seemed to carry 
misfortune to the uttermost. 

David Deans had been alarmed at the state of health in 
which his daughter had returned to her paternal residence ; 
but Jeanie had contrived to divert him from particular and 
specific inquiry. It was, therefore, like a clap of thunder to 
the poor old man when, just as the hour of noon had brought 
the visit of the Laird of Dumbiedikes as usual, other and sterner, 
as well as most unexpected, guests arrived at the cottage of 
St. Leonard’s. These were the officers of justice, with a warrant 
of justiciary to search for and apprehend Euphemia or Effie 
Deans, accused of the crime of child -murder. The stunning 
v/eight of a blow so totally unexpected bore down the old man, 
who had in his early youth resisted the brow of military and 
civil tyranny, though backed with swords and guns, tortures 
and gibbets. He fell extended and senseless upon his own 
hearth ; and the men, happy to escape from the scene of his 
awakening, raised, with rude humanity, the object of their 
warrant from her bed, and placed her in a coach, which they 
had brought with them. The hasty remedies which Jeanie had 
applied to bring back her father’s senses were scarce begun to 
operate when the noise of the wheels in motion recalled her 
attention to her miserable sister. To run shrieking after the 
carriage was the first vain effort of her distraction, but she was 
stopped by one or two female neighbours, assembled by the 
extraordinary appearance of a coach in that sequestered place, 
who almost forced her back to her father’s house. The deep 
and sympathetic affliction of these poor people, by whom the 
little family at St. Leonard’s were held in high regard, filled 
the house with lamentation. Even Dumbiedikes was moved 
from his wonted apathy, and, groping for his purse as he spoke, 
ejaculated, ‘Jeanie, woman !— Jeanie, woman ! dinna greet. It’s 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


105 


sad wark ; but siller will help it/ and he drew out his purse as 
he spoke. 

The old man had now raised himself from the ground, and, 
looking about him as if he missed something, seemed gradually 
to recover the sense of his wretchedness. ‘Where,’ he said, 
with a voice that made the roof ring — ‘ where is the vile harlot 
that has disgraced the blood of an honest man ^ Where is she 
that has no place among us, but has come foul with her sins, 
like the Evil One, among the children of God ? Where is she, 
J eanie ? Bring her before me, that I may kill her with a word 
and a look ! ’ 

All hastened around him with their appropriate sources 
of consolation — the Laird with his purse, Jeanie with burnt 
feathers and strong waters, and the women with their exhorta- 
tions. ‘0 neighbour — 0 Mr. Deans, it’s a sair trial, doubt- 
less ; but think of the Rock of Ages, neighbour, think of the 
promise ! ’ 

‘ And I do think of it, neighbours, and I bless God that I 
can think of it, even in the wrack and ruin of a’ that’s nearest 
and dearest to me. But to be the father of a castaway, a profli- 
gate, a bloody Zipporah, a mere murderess ! 0, how will the 

wicked exult in the high places of their wickedness ! — the pre- 
latists, and the latitudinarians, and the hand-waled murderers, 
whose hands are hard as horn wi’ handing the slaughter-weapons-; 
they will push out the lip, and say that we are even such as 
themselves. Sair, sair I am grieved, neighbours, for the poor 
castaway, for the child of mine old age ; but sairer for the 
stumbling-block and scandal it will be to all tender and honest 
souls ! ’ 

‘ Davie, winna siller do’t ? ’ insinuated the Laird, still proffer- 
ing his green purse, which was full of guineas. 

‘ I tell ye, Dumbiedikes,’ said Deans, ‘ that if telling down 
my haill substance could hae saved her frae this black snare, I 
wad hae walked out wi’ naething but my bonnet and my staff 
to beg an awmous for God’s sake, and ca’d mysell an happy 
man. But if a dollar, or a plack, or the nineteenth part of a 
boddle w’ad save her open guilt and open shame frae open 
punishment, that purchase wad David Deans never make. Na, 
na ; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, life for life, blood 
for blood : it’s the law of man, and it’s the law of God. Leave 
me, sirs — leave me ; I maun warstle wi’ this trial in privacy 
and on my knees.’ 

Jeanie, now in some degree restored to the power of thought. 


106 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


joined in the same request. The next day found the father 
and daughter still in the depth of affliction, but the father 
sternly supporting his load of ill through a proud sense of 
religious duty, and the daughter anxiously suppressing her own 
feelings to avoid again awakening his. Thus was it with the 
afflicted family until the morning after Porteous’s death, a 
period at which we are now arrived. 


CHAPTER XI 


Is all the counsel that we two "have shared, 

The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent 
When we have chid the hasty-footed time 
For parting us — Oh ! and is all forgot ? 

Midsumimr Night's Dream. 

We have been a long while in conducting Butler to the door of 
the cottage at St. Leonard’s; yet the space which we have 
occupied in the preceding narrative does not exceed in length 
that which he actually spent on Salisbury Crags on the morn- 
ing which succeeded the execution done upon Porteous by the 
rioters. For this delay he had his own motives. He wished 
to collect his thoughts, strangely agitated as they were, first 
by the melancholy news of Effie Deans’s situation, and after- 
wards by the frightful scene which he had witnessed. In the 
situation also in which he stood with respect to Jeanie and her 
father, some ceremony, at least some choice of fitting time and 
season, was necessary to wait upon them. Eight in the morn- 
ing was then the ordinary hour for breakfast, and he resolved 
that it should arrive before he made his appearance in their 
cottage. 

Never did hoims pass so heavily. Butler shifted his place 
and enlarged his circle to while away the time, and heard the 
huge bell of St. Giles’s toll each successive hour in swelling 
tones, which were instantly attested by those of the other 
steeples in succession. He had heard seven struck in this 
manner, when he began to think he might venture to approach 
nearer to St. Leonard’s, from which he was still a mile distant. 
Accordingly he descended from his lofty station as low as the 
bottom of the valley which divides Salisbury Crags from those 
small rocks which take their name from St. Leonard. It is, 
as many of my readers may know, a deep, wild, grassy valley, 
scattered with huge rocks and fragments which have descended 
from the cliffs and steep ascent to the east. 


108 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


This sequestered dell, as well as other places of the open 
pasturage of the King’s Park, was, about this time, often the 
resort of the gallants of the time who had affairs of honour to 
discuss with the sword. Duels were then very common in 
Scotland, for the gentry were at once idle, haughty, fierce, 
divided by faction, and addicted to intemperance, so that there 
lacked neither provocation nor inclination to resent it when 
given; and the sword, which was part of every gentleman’s 
dress, was the only weapon used for the decision of such differ- 
ences. When, therefore, Butler observed a young man skulk- 
ing, apparently to avoid observation, among the scattered rocks 
at some distance from the footpath, he was naturally led to 
suppose that he had sought this lonely spot upon that evil 
errand. He was so strongly impressed with this that, notwith- 
standing his own distress of mind, he could not, according to 
his sense of duty as a clergyman, pass this person without 
speaking to him. ‘There are times,’ thought he to himself, 
‘when the slightest interference may avert a great calamity — 
when a word spoken in season may do more for prevention 
than the eloquence of Tully could do for remedying evil. And 
for my own griefs, be they as they may, I shall feel them the 
lighter if they divert me not from the prosecution of my duty.’ 

Thus thinking and feeling, he quitted the ordinary path 
and advanced nearer the object he had noticed. The man at 
first directed his course towards the hill, in order, as it appeared, 
to avoid him ; but when he saw that Butler seemed disposed 
to follow him, he adjusted his hat fiercely, turned round and 
came forward, as if to meet and defy scrutiny. 

Butler had an opportunity of accurately studying his features 
as they advanced slowly to meet each other. The stranger 
seemed about twenty-five years old. His dress was of a kind 
which could hardly be said to indicate his rank with certainty, 
for it was such as young gentlemen sometimes wore while 
on active exercise in the morning, and which, therefore, was 
imitated by those of the inferior ranks, as young clerks and 
tradesmen, because its cheapness rendered it attainable, while 
it approached more nearly to the apparel of youths of fashion 
than any other w’hich the manners of the times permitted them 
to wear. If his air and manner could be trusted, however, 
this person seemed rather to be dressed under than above his 
rank; for his carriage was bold and somewhat supercilious, 
his step easy and free, his manner daring and unconstrained. 
His stature was of the middle size, or rather above it, his limbs 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


109 


well-proportioned, yet not so strong as to infer the reproach of 
clumsiness. His features were uncommonly handsome, and all 
about him would have been interesting and prepossessing, but 
for that indescribable expression which habitual dissipation 
gives to the countenance, joined with a certain audacity in 
look and manner, of that kind which is often assumed as a 
mask for confusion and apprehension. 

Butler and the stranger met, surveyed each other; when, 
as the latter, slightly touching his hat, was about to pass by 
him, Butler, while he returned the salutation, observed, ‘ A fine 
morning, sir. You are on the hill early.’ 

‘ I have business here,’ said the young man, in a tone meant 
to repress further inquiry. 

‘ I do not doubt it, sir,’ said Butler. ‘ I trust you will for- 
give my hoping that it is of a lawful kind ? ’ 

‘ Sir,’ said the other with marked surprise, ‘ I never forgive 
impertinence, nor can I conceive what title you have to hope 
anything about what no way concerns you.’ 

‘I am a soldier, sir,’ said Butler, ‘and have a charge to 
arrest evil-doers in the name of my Master.’ 

‘ A soldier ! ’ said the young man, stepping back and fiercely 
laying his hand on his sword — ‘ a soldier, and arrest me ? Did 
you reckon w^hat your life was worth before you took the 
commission upon youT 

‘You mistake me, sir,’ said Butler, gravely; ‘neither my 
warfare nor my warrant are of this world. I am a preacher of 
the Gospel, and have power, in my Master’s name, to command 
the peace upon earth and good-will towards men which was 
proclaimed with the Gospel.’ 

‘ A minister ! ’ said the stranger, carelessly, and with an 
expression approaching to scorn. ‘I know the gentlemen of 
your cloth in Scotland claim a strange right of intermeddling 
with men’s private affairs. But I have been abroad, and know 
better than to be priest-ridden.’ 

‘Sir, if it be true that any of my cloth, or, it might be 
more decently said, of my calling, interfere with men’s private 
affairs, for the gratification either of idle curiosity or for worse 
motives, you cannot have learned a better lesson abroad than 
to contemn such practices. But, in my Master’s work, I am 
called to be busy in season and out of season ; and, conscious 
as I am of a pure motive, it were better for me to incur your 
contempt for speaking than the correction of my own conscience 
for being silent.’ 


110 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ In the name of the devil ! ’ said the young man, impatiently, 
‘ say what you have to say, then ; though whom you take me 
for, or what earthly concern you can have with me, a stranger 
to you, or with my actions and motives, of which you can 
know nothing, I cannot conjecture for an instant.’ 

‘ You are about,’ said Butler, ‘ to violate one of your country’s 
wisest laws, you are about — which is much more dreadful — to 
violate a law which God Himself has implanted within our 
nature, and written, as it were, in the table of our hearts, to 
which every thrill of our nerves is responsive.’ 

‘ And what is the law you speak of ? ’ said the stranger, in a 
hollow and somewhat disturbed accent. 

‘Thou shalt do no murder,’ said Butler, with a deep and 
solemn voice. 

The young man visibly started, and looked considerably 
appalled. Butler perceived he had made a favourable im- 
pression, and resolved to follow it up. ‘ Think,’ he said, ‘young 
man,’ laying his hand kindly upon the stranger’s shoulder, 
‘ what an awful alternative you voluntarily choose for yourself, 
to kill or be killed. Think what it is to rush uncalled into the 
presence of an offended Deity, your heart fermenting with evil 
passions, your hand hot from the steel you had been urging, 
with your best skill and malice, against the breast of a fellow- 
creature. Or, suppose yourself the scarce less wretched sur- 
vivor, with the guilt of Cain, the first murderer, in your heart, 
with his stamp upon your brow — that stamp, which struck 
all who gazed on him with unutterable horror, and by which 
the murderer is made manifest to all who look upon him. 
Think ’ 

The stranger gradually withdrew himself from under the 
hand of his monitor ; and, pulling his hat over his brows, thus 
interrupted him. ‘ Your meaning, sir, I daresay, is excellent, but 
you are throwing your advice away. I am not in this place 
with violent intentions against any one. I may be bad enough 
— you priests say all men are so — but I am here for the purpose 
of saving life, not of taking it away. If you wish to spend 
your time rather in doing a good action than in talking about 
you know not what, I will give you an opportunity. Do you 
see yonder crag to the right, over which appears the chimney 
of a lone house? Go thither, inquire for one Jeanie Deans, the 
daughter of the goodman ; let her know that he she wots of 
remained here from daybreak till this hour, expecting to see 
her, and that he can abide no longer. Tell her she must meet 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


111 


me at the Hunter’s Bog to-night, as the moon rises behind St. 
Anthony’s Hill, or that she will make a desperate man of me.’ 

‘Who or what are you,’ replied Butler, exceedingly and 
most unpleasantly surprised, ‘who charge me with such an 
errand ? ’ 

‘ I am the devil ! ’ answered the young man, hastily. 

Butler stepped instinctively back and commended himself 
internally to Heaven; for, though a wise and strong-minded 
man, he was neither wiser nor more strong-minded than those 
of his age and education, with whom to disbelieve witchcraft 
or spectres was held an undeniable proof of atheism. 

The stranger went on without observing his emotion. ‘ Yes ! 
call me Apollyon, Abaddon, whatever name you shall choose, as 
a clergyman acquainted with the upper and lower circles of 
spiritual denomination, to call me by, you shall not find an 
appellation more odious to him that bears it than is mine own.’ 

This sentence was spoken with the bitterness of self-up- 
braiding, and a contortion of visage absolutely demoniacal. 
Butler, though a man brave by principle, if not by constitution, 
was overawed ; for intensity of mental distress has in it a sort 
of sublimity which repels and overawes all men, but especially 
those of kind and sympathetic dispositions. The stranger 
turned abruptly from Butler as he spoke, but instantly returned, 
and, coming up to him closely and boldly, said, in a fierce, de- 
termined tone, ‘ I have told you who and what I am ; who and 
what are you ? What is your name ? ’ 

‘ Butler,’ answered the person to whom this abrupt question 
was addressed, surprised into answering it by the sudden and 
fierce manner of the querist — ‘Beuben Butler, a preacher of 
the Gospel.’ 

At this answer, the stranger again plucked more deep over 
his brows the hat which he had thrown back in his former agita- 
tion. ‘ Butler ! ’ he repeated, ‘ the assistant of the schoolmaster 
at Liberton ? ’ 

‘ The same,’ answered Butler, composedly. 

The stranger covered his face with his hand, as if on sudden 
reflection, and then turned away ; but stopped when he had 
walked a few paces, and seeing Butler follow him with his 
eyes, called out in a stem yet suppressed tone, just as if he had 
exactly calculated that his accents should not be heard a yard 
beyond the spot on which Butler stood. ‘ Go your way and 
do mine errand. Do not look after me. I will neither descend 
through the bowels of these rocks, nor vanish in a flash of fire ; 


112 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


and yet the eye that seeks to trace my motions shall have 
reason to curse it was ever shrouded by eyelid or eyelash. 
Begone, and look not behind you. Tell Jeanie Deans that 
when the moon rises I shall expect to meet her at Nicol 
Muschat’s Cairn, beneath St. Anthony’s Chapel.’ 

As he uttered these words, he turned and took the road 
against the hill, with a haste that seemed as peremptory as his 
tone of authority. 

Dreading he knew not what of additional misery to a lot 
which seemed little capable of receiving augmentation, and 
desperate at the idea that any living man should dare to send 
so extraordinary a request, couched in terms so imperious, to 
the half-betrothed object of his early and only affection, Butler 
strode hastily towards the cottage, in order to ascertain how 
far this daring and rude gallant was actually entitled to press 
on Jeanie Deans a request which, no prudent, and scarce any 
modest, young woman was likely to comply with. 

Butler was by nature neither jealous nor superstitious ; yet 
the feelings which lead to those moods of the mind were rooted 
in his heart, as a portion derived from the common stock of 
humanity. It was maddening to think that a profligate gallant, 
such as the manner and tone of the stranger evinced him to be, 
should have it in his power to command forth his future bride 
and plighted true love, at a place so improper and an hour so 
unseasonable. Yet the tone in which the stranger spoke had 
nothing of the soft half -breathed voice proper to the seducer 
who solicits an assignation ; it was bold, fierce, and imperative, 
and had less of love in it than of menace and intimidation. 

The suggestions of superstition seemed more plausible, had 
Butler’s mind been very accessible to them. Was this indeed 
the Roaring Lion, who goeth about seeking whom he may 
devour ? This was a question which pressed itself on Butler’s 
mind with an earnestness that cannot be conceived by those 
who live in the present day. The fiery eye, the abrupt de- 
meanour, the occasionally harsh, yet studiously subdued, tone 
of voice ; the features, handsome, but now clouded with pride, 
now disturbed by suspicion, now inflamed with passion ; those 
dark hazel eyes which he sometimes shaded with his cap, as if 
he were averse to have them seen while they were occupied 
with keenly observing the motions and bearing of others — those 
eyes that were now turbid with melancholy, now- gleaming with 
scorn, and now sparkling with fury — was it the passions of a 
mere mortal they expressed, or the emotions of a fiend, who 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


113 


seeks, and seeks in vain, to conceal his fiendish designs under 
the borrowed mask of manly beauty ? The whole partook of 
the mien, language, and port of the ruined archangel ; and, 
imperfectly as we have been able to describe it, the effect of 
the interview upon Butler’s nerves, shaken as they were at the 
time by the horrors of the preceding night, was greater than 
his understanding warranted, or his pride cared to submit to. 
The very place where he had met this singular person was 
desecrated, as it were, and unhallowed, owing to many violent 
deaths, both in duels and by suicide, which had in former times 
taken place there ; and the place which he had named as a 
rendezvous at so late an hour was held in general to be accursed, 
from a frightful and cruel murder which had been there com- 
mitted, by the wretch from whom the place took its name, upon 
the person of his own wife.* It was in such places, according 
to the belief of that period, when the laws against witchcraft 
were still in fresh observance, and had even lately been acted 
upon, that evil spirits had power to make themselves visible 
to human eyes, and to practise upon the feelings and senses of 
mankind. Suspicions, founded on such circumstances, rushed 
on Butler’s mind, unprepared as it was, by any previous course 
of reasoning, to deny that which all of his time, country, and 
profession believed ; but common sense rejected these vain ideas 
as inconsistent, if not with possibility, at least with the general 
rules by which the universe is governed — a deviation from 
which, as Butler well argued with himself, ought not to be 
admitted as probable upon any but the plainest and most 
incontrovertible evidence. An earthly lover, however, or a 
young man who, from whatever cause, had the right of exer- 
cising such summary and unceremonious authority over the 
object of his long -settled, and apparently sincerely returned, 
affection, was an object scarce less appalling to his mind than 
those which superstition suggested. 

His limbs exhausted with fatigue, his mind harassed with 
anxiety, and with painful doubts and recollections, Butler 
dragged himself up the ascent from the valley to St. Leonard’s 
Crags, and presented himself at the door of Deans’s habitation, 
with feelings much akin to the miserable reflections and fears 
of its inhabitants. 

* See Muschat’s Caim. Note 17. 


VII 


8 


/ 


/ 




CHAPTER XII 

Then she stretch’d out her lily hand, 

And for to do her best ; 

‘ Hae back thy faith and troth, Willie. 

God gie thy soul good rest ! ’ 

Old Ballad. 

‘Comb in,’ answered the low and sweet- toned voice he loved best 
to hear, as Butler tapped at the door of the cottage. He lifted 
the latch, and found himself under the roof of affliction. Jeanie 
was unable to trust herself with more than one glance towards 
her lover, whom she now met under circumstances so agonising 
to her feelings, and at the same time so humbling to her honest 
pride. It is w^ell known that much both of what is good and 
bad in the Scottish national character arises out of the intimacy 
of their family connexions. ‘ To be come of honest folk,’ that 
is, of people who have borne a fair and unstained reputation, is 
an advantage as highly prized among the lower Scotch as the 
emphatic counterpart, ‘to be of a good family,’ is valued among 
their gentry. The worth and respectability of one member of 
a peasant’s family is always accounted by themselves and others 
not only a matter of honest pride, but a guarantee for the good 
conduct of the whole. On the contrary, such a melancholy stain 
as was now flung on one of the children of Deans extended 
its disgrace to all connected with him, and Jeanie felt herself 
lowered at once in her own eyes and in those of her lover. It 
was in vain that she repressed this feeling, as far subordinate 
and too selfish to be mingled with her sorrow for her sister’s 
calamity. Nature prevailed ; and while she shed tears for her 
sister’s distress and danger, there mingled with them bitter drops 
of grief for her own degradation. 

As Butler entered, the old man was seated by the fire with 
his well-worn pocket Bible in his hands, the companion of the 
wanderings and dangers of his youth, and bequeathed to him 
on the scaffold by one of those who, in the year 1686 , sealed 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


115 


their enthusiastic principles with their blood. The sun sent 
its rays through a small window at the old man’s back, and, 
‘ shining motty through the reek,’ to use the expression of a 
bard of that time and country, illumined the grey hairs of the 
old man and the sacred page which he studied. His features, 
far from handsome, and rather harsh and severe, had yet, from 
their expression of habitual gravity and contempt for earthly 
things, an expression of stoical dignity amidst their sternness. 
He boasted, in no small degree, the attributes which Southey 
ascribes to the ancient Scandinavians, whom he terms ‘firm to 
inflict and stubborn to endure.’ The whole formed a picture, 
of which the lights might have been given by Rembrandt, but 
the outline W'ould have required the force and vigour of Michael 
Angelo. 

Deans lifted his eye as Butler entered, and instantly with- 
drew it, as from an object which gave him at once surprise and 
sudden pain. He had assumed such high ground with this 
carnal-witted scholar, as he had in his pride termed Butler, that 
to meet him of all men under feelings of humiliation aggra- 
vated his misfortune, and was a consummation like that of the 
dying chief in the old ballad — ‘ Earl Percy sees 'my fall ! ’ 

Deans raised the Bible with his left hand, so as partly to 
screen his face, and putting back his right as far as he could, 
held it towards Butler in that position, at the same time turn- 
ing his body from him, as if to prevent his seeing the working 
of his countenance. Butler clasped the extended hand which 
had supported his orphan infancy, wept over it, and in vain 
endeavoured to say more than the words — ‘ God comfort you — 
God comfort you ! ’ 

‘He will — He doth, my friend,’ said Deans, assuming firm- 
ness as he discovered the agitation of his guest ; ‘ He doth now, 
and He will yet more, in His own gude time. I have been ower 
proud of my sufferings in a gude cause, Reuben, and now I am 
to be tried with those whilk will turn my pride and glory into 
a reproach and a hissing. How muckle better I hae thought 
mysell than them that lay saft, fed sweet, and drank deep, when 
I was in the moss-hags and moors, wi’ precious Donald [Richard] 
Cameron, and worthy Mr. Blackadder, called Guessagain; and 
how proud I was o’ being made a spectacle to men and angels, 
having stood on their pillory at the Canongate afore I was fifteen 
years old, for the cause of a National Covenant ! To think, 
Reuben, that I, wha hae been sae honoured and exalted in my 
youth, nay, when I was but a hafflins callant, and that hae borne 


116 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


testimony again the defections o’ the times, yearly, monthly, 
daily, hourly, minutely, striving and testifying with uplifted 
hand and voice, crying aloud, and sparing not, against all 
great national snares, as the nation-wasting and church-sinking 
abomination of union, toleration, and patronage, imposed by 
the last woman of that unhappy race of Stuarts, also against 
the infringements and invasions of the just powers of elder- 
ship, whereanent I uttered my paper, called a “Cry of an 
Howl in the Desert,” printed at the Bow-head, and sold by 
all flying stationers in town and country — and tww ’ 

Here he paused. It may well be supposed that Butler, 
though not absolutely coinciding in all the good old man’s 
ideas about church government, had too much consideration 
and humanity to interrupt him, while he reckoned up with 
conscious pride his sufferings, and the constancy of his testi- 
mony. On the contrary, when he paused under the influenee 
of the bitter recollections of the moment, Butler instantly 
threw in his mite of encouragement. 

‘ You have been w^ell known, my old and revered friend, a 
true and tried follow^er of the Cross; one who, as St. Jerome 
hath it, “joer infamiam et hcmarti famam grassari ad immortali- 
tatem” vrhich may be freely rendered, “who rusheth on to 
immortal life, through bad report and good report.” You have 
been one of those to whom the tender and fearful souls cry 
during the midnight solitude — “Watchman, what of the 
night? — Watchman, what of the night?” And, assuredly, this 
heavy dispensation, as it comes not without Divine permission, 
so it comes not without its special commission and use.’ 

‘I do receive it as such,’ said poor Deans, returning the 
grasp of Butler’s hand; ‘and, if I have not been taught to 
read the Scripture in any other tongue but my native Scot- 
tish (even in his distress Butler’s Latin quotation had not 
escaped his notice), I have, nevertheless, so learned them, that 
I trust to bear even this crook in my lot with submission. 
But 0, Reuben Butler, the kirk, of whilk, though unworthy, I 
have yet been thought a polished shaft, and meet to be a pillar, 
holding, from my youth upward, the place of ruling elder — 
what will the lightsome and profane think of the guide that 
cannot keep his own family from stumbling ? How will they 
take up their song and their reproach, when they see that the 
children of professors are liable to as foul backsliding as the 
offspring of Belial ! But I will bear my cross with the comfort, 
that whatever showed like goodness in me or mine, was but 


THE HEART OE MIDLOTHIAN 


117 


like the light that shines frae creeping insects, on the brae-side, 
in a dark night : it kythes bright to the ee, because all is dark 
around it ; but when the morn comes on the mountains, it is 
but a puir crawling kail-worm after a’. And sae it shows wi’ 
ony rag of human righteousness, or formal law-work, that we 
may pit round us to cover our shame.’ 

As he pronounced these words, the door again opened, and 
Mr. Bartoline Saddletree entered, his three-pointed hat set far 
back on his head, with a silk handkerchief beneath it, to keep 
it in that cool position, his gold-headed cane in his hand, and 
his whole deportment that of a wealthy burgher, who might 
one day look to have a share in the magistracy, if not actually 
to hold the curule chair itself. 

Rochefoucault, who has torn the veil from so many foul 
gangrenes of the human heart, says, we find something not 
altogether unpleasant to us in the misfortunes of our best 
friends. Mr. Saddletree would have been very angry had any 
one told him that he felt pleasure in the disaster of poor Effie 
Deans and the disgrace of her family ; and yet there is great 
question whether the gratification of playing the person of 
importance, inquiring, investigating, and laying down the law 
on the whole affair, did not offer, to say the least, full consola- 
tion for the pain which pure sympathy gave him on account of 
his wife’s kinswoman. He had now got a piece of real judicial 
business by the end, instead of being obliged, as was his 
common case, to intrude his opinion where it was neither 
wished nor wanted ; and felt as happy in the exchange as a 
boy when he gets his first new watch, which actually goes 
when wound up, and has real hands and a true dial -plate. 
But besides this subject for legal disquisition, Bartoline’s brains 
were also overloaded with the affair of Porteous, his violent 
death, and all its probable consequences to the city and 
community. It was what the French call Vemharras des 
richesses, the confusion arising from too much mental wealth. 
He walked in with a consciousness of double importance, full 
fraught with the superiority of one who possesses more inform- 
ation than the company into which he entei's, and who feels 
a right to discharge his learning on them without mercy. 

‘ Good morning, Mr. Deans. Good-morrow to you, Mr. Butler ; 
I was not aware that you were acquainted with Mr. Deans.’ 

Butler made some slight answer ; his reasons may be readily 
imagined for not making his connexion with the family, which, 
in his eyes, had something of tender mystery, a frequent 


118 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


subject of conversation with indifferent persons, such as Saddle- 
tree. 

The worthy burgher, in the plenitude of self-importance, 
now sate down upon a chair, wiped his brow, collected his 
breath, and made the first experiment of the resolved pith of 
his lungs, in a deep and dignified sigh, resembling a groan in 
sound and intonation — ‘ Awfu’ times these, neighbour Deans — 
awfu’ times ! ’ 

‘ Sinfu’, shamefu’. Heaven-daring times,’ answered Deans, in 
a lower and more subdued tone. 

‘ For my part,’ continued Saddletree, swelling with import- 
ance, ‘ what between the distress of my friends and my poor 
auld country, ony wit that ever I had may be said to have 
abandoned me, sae that I sometimes think myself as ignorant 
as if I were inter rusticos. Here when I arise in the morning, 
wi’ my mind just arranged touching what’s to be done in puir 
Effie’s misfortune, and hae gotten the haill statute at my finger- 
ends, the mob maun get up and string Jock Porteous to a 
dyester’s beam, and ding a’ thing out of my head again.’ 

Deeply as he was distressed with his own domestic calamity. 
Deans could not help expressing some interest in the news. 
Saddletree immediately entered on details of the insurrection 
and its consequences, while Butler took the occasion to seek 
some private conversation with Jeanie Deans. She gave him 
the opportunity he sought, by leaving the room, as if in prose- 
cution of some part of her morning labour. Butler followed 
her in a few minutes, leaving Deans so closely engaged by his 
busy visitor that there was little chance of his observing their 
absence. 

The scene of their interview was an outer apartment, where 
Jeanie was used to busy herself in arranging the productions of 
her dairy. When Butler found an opportunity of stealing after 
her into this place, he found her silent, dejected, and ready to 
burst into tears. Instead of the active industry with which she 
had been accustomed, even while in the act of speaking, to 
employ her hands in some useful branch of household business, 
she was seated listless in a corner, sinking apparently under the 
weight of her own thoughts. Yet the instant he entered, she 
dried her eyes, and, with the simplicity and openness of her 
character, immediately entered on conversation. 

‘ I am glad you have come in, Mr. Butler,’ said she, ‘ for — 
for — for I wished to tell ye, that all maun be ended between 
you and me ; it’s best for baith our sakes.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 119 

‘Ended !’ said Butler, in surprise; ‘and for what should it 
be ended? I grant this is a heavy dispensation, but it lies 
neither at your door nor mine ; it’s an evil of God’s sending, 
and it must he borne ; but it cannot break plighted troth, 
Jeanie, while they that plighted their word wish to keep it.’ 

‘ But, Reuben,’ said the young woman, looking at him affec- 
tionately, ‘ I ken weel that ye think mair of me than yourself ; 
and, Reuben, I can only in requital think mair of your weal 
than of my aim Ye are a man of spotless name, bred to God’s 
ministry, and a’ men say that ye will some day rise high in the 
kirk, though poverty keep ye down e’en now. Poverty is a bad 
back-friend, Reuben, and that ye ken ower weel ; but ill-fame 
is a waur ane, and that is a truth ye sail never learn through 
my means.’ 

‘ What do you mean ? ’ said Butler, eagerly and impatiently ; 
‘ or how do you connect your sister’s guilt, if guilt there be, 
which, I trust in God, may yet be disproved, with our engage- 
ment ? How can that affect you or me ? ’ 

‘ How can you ask me that, Mr. Butler ? Will this stain, 
d’ye think, ever be forgotten, as lang as our heads are abune 
the grund ? Will it not stick to us, and to our bairns, and to 
their very bairns’ bairns ? To hae been the child of an honest 
man might hae been saying something for me and mine ; but 

to be the sister of a 0 my God ! ’ With this exclamation 

her resolution failed, and she burst into a passionate fit of tears. 

The lover used every effort to induce her to compose herself, 
and at length succeeded ; but she only resumed her composure 
to express herself with the same positiveness as before. ‘ No, 
Reuben, I’ll bring disgrace hame to nae man’s hearth ; my ain 
distresses I can bear, and I maun bear, but there is nae occasion 
for buckling them on other folks’ shouthers. I will bear my 
load alone ; the back is made for the burden.’ 

A lover is by charter wayward and suspicious; and Jeanie’s 
readiness to renounce their engagement, under pretence of zeal 
for his peace of mind and respectability of character, seemed to 
poor Butler to form a portentous combination with the commis- 
sion of the stranger he had met with that morning. His voice 
faltered as he asked, ‘Whether nothing but a sense of her 
sister’s present distress occasioned her to talk in that manner ? ’ 
‘ And what else can do sae ? ’ she replied with simplicity. ‘ Is 
it not ten long years since we spoke together in this way ? ’ 

‘ Ten years ? ’ said Butler. ‘ It’s a long time, sufficient per- 
haps for a woman to weary ’ 


120 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ To weary of her auld gown,’ said Jeanie, ‘and to wdsh for a 
new ane, if she likes to be brave, but not long enough to weary 
of a friend. The eye may wish change, but the heart never.’ 

‘ Never ! ’ said Reuben ; ‘ that’s a bold promise.’ 

‘But not more bauld than true,’ said Jeanie, with the 
same quiet simplicity which attended her manner in joy and 
grief, in ordinary affairs, and in those which most interested 
her feelings. 

Butler paused, and looking at her fixedly, — ‘ I am charged,’ 
he said, ‘ with a message to you, Jeanie.’ 

‘ Indeed ! From whom ? Or what can ony ane have to say 
to me ? ’ 

‘ It is from a stranger,’ said Butler, affecting to speak with 
an indifference which his voice belied, ‘ a young man whom I 
met this morning in the Park.’ 

‘ Mercy ! ’ said Jeanie, eagerly ; ‘ and what did he say ? ’ 

‘ That he did not see you at the hour he expected, but re- 
quired you should meet him alone at Muschat’s Cairn this night, 
so soon as the moon rises.’ 

‘ Tell him,’ said Jeanie, hastily, ‘ I shall certainly come.’ 

‘May I ask,’ said Butler, his suspicions increasing at the 
ready alacrity of the answ^er, ‘ who this man is to whom you 
are so willing to give the meeting at a place and hour so un- 
common ? ’ 

‘Folk maun do muckle they have little will to do in this 
world,’ replied Jeanie. 

‘ Granted,’ said her lover ; ‘ but what compels you to this ? 
Who is this person 1 What I saw of him was not very favour- 
able. Who or what is he ? ’ 

‘ I do not know ! ’ replied Jeanie, composedly. 

‘ You do not know ? ’ said Butler, stepping impatiently 
through the apartment. ‘ You purpose to meet a young man 
whom you do not know, at such a time and in a place so lonely, 
you say you are compelled to do this, and yet you say you 
do not know the person who exercises such an influence over 
you ! Jeanie, what am I to think of this?’ 

‘ Think only, Reuben, that I speak truth, as if I w^ere to 
answer at the last day. I do not ken this man, I do not even 
ken that I ever saw him ; and yet I must give him the meeting 
he asks, there’s life and death upon it.’ 

‘ Will you not tell your father, or take him with you ? ’ said 
Butler. 

‘I cannot,’ said Jeanie ; ‘ I have no permission.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


121 


* Will you let me go with you ? I will wait in the Park till 
nightfall, and join you when you set out.’ 

‘It is impossible,’ said Jeanie; ‘there maunna be mortal 
creature within hearing of our conference.’ 

‘Have you considered well the nature of what you are 
going to do ? — the time, the place, an unknown and suspicious 
character? Why, if he had asked to see you in this house, 
your father sitting in the next room, and within call, at such 
an hour, you should have refused to see him.’ 

‘ My weird maun be fulfilled, Mr. Butler. My life and my 
safety are in God’s hands, but I’ll not spare to risk either of 
them on the eiTand I am gaun to do.’ 

‘Then, Jeanie,’ said Butler, much displeased, ‘we must in- 
deed break short off, and bid farewell. When there can be no 
confidence betwixt a man and his plighted wife on such a 
momentous topic, it is a sign that she has no longer the regard 
for him that makes their engagement safe and suitable.’ 

Jeanie looked at him and sighed. ‘I thought,’ she said, 
‘ that I had brought myself to bear this parting ; but — but — I 
did not ken that we were to part in unkindness. But I am a 
woman and you are a man, it may be different wi’ you; if 
your mind is made easier by thinking sae hardly of me, I 
would not ask you to think otherwise.’ 

‘ You are,’ said Butler, ‘ what you have always been — wiser, 
better, and less selfish in your native feelings than I can be 
with all the helps philosophy can give to a Christian. But why 
— why wdll you persevere in an undertaking so desperate? 
Why will you not let me be your assistant, your protector, or 
at least your adviser ? ’ 

‘Just because I cannot, and I dare not,’ answered Jeanie, 
‘ But hark, what’s that ? Surely my father is no weel ? ’ 

In fact, the voices in the next room became obstreperously 
loud of a sudden, the cause of which vociferation it is necessary 
to explain before we go farther. 

When Jeanie and Butler retired, Mr. Saddletree entered 
upon the business which chiefly interested the family. In the 
commencement of their conversation he found old Deans, who, 
in his usual state of mind, was no granter of propositions, so 
much subdued by a deep sense of his daughter’s danger and 
disgi-ace that he heard without replying to, or perhaps with- 
out understanding, one or two learned disquisitions on the 
nature of the crime imputed to her charge, and on the steps 
which ought to be taken in consequence. His only answer at 


122 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


each pause was, ‘ I am no misdoubting that you wmss us weel, 
your wife’s our far-awa’ cousin.’ 

Encouraged by these symptoms of acquiescence, Saddletree, 
who, as an amateur of the law, had a supreme deference for 
all constituted authorities, again recurred to his other topic of 
interest, the murder, namely, of Porteous, and pronounced a 
severe censure on the parties concerned. 

‘ These are kittle times — kittle times, Mr. Deans, when the 
people take the power of life and death out of the hands of the 
rightful magistrate into their ain rough grip. I am of opinion, 
and so, I believe, will Mr. Crossmyloof and the privy council, 
that this rising in effeir of war, to take away the life of a 
reprieved man, will prove little better than perduellion.’ 

‘If I hadna that on my mind w'hilk is ill to bear, Mr. 
Saddletree,’ said Deans, ‘I wad make bold to dispute that 
point wi’ you.’ 

‘ How could ye dispute what’s plain law, man ? ’ said Saddle- 
tree, somewhat contemptuously ; ‘ there’s no a callant that e’er 
carried a pock wi’ a process in’t, but will tell you that perduellion 
is the warst and maist virulent kind of treason, being an 
open convocating of the king’s lieges against his authority, 
mair especially in arms, and by touk of drum, to baith whilk 
accessories my een and lugs bore witness, and muckle warse 
than lese-majesty, or the concealment of a treasonable purpose. 
It winna bear a dispute, neighbour.’ 

‘ But it will, though,’ retorted Douce Davie Deans ; ‘ I tell 
ye it will bear a dispute. I never like your cauld, legal, formal 
doctrines, neighbour Saddletree. I hand unco little by the 
Parliament House, since the awfu’ downfall of the hopes of 
honest folk that followed the Revolution.’ 

‘ But what wad ye hae had, Mr. Deans 'i ’ said Saddletree, 
impatiently ; ‘ didna ye get baith liberty and conscience made 
fast, and settled by tailzie on you and your heirs for ever ? ’ 

‘ Mr. Saddletree,’ retorted Deans, ‘ I ken ye are one of those 
that are wise after the manner of this world, and that ye baud 
your part, and cast in your portion, wi’ the lang-heads and 
lang-gowns, and keep with the smart witty-pated lawyers of 
this our land. Weary on the dark and dolefu’ cast that they 
hae gien this unhappy kingdom, when their black hands of de- 
fection were clasped in the red hands of our sworn murtherers ; 
when those who had numbered the towers of our Zion, and 
marked the bulwarks of our Reformation, saw their hope turn 
into a snare and their rejoicing into weeping.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


123 


‘ I canna understand this, neighbour,’ answered Saddletree. 
‘I am an honest Presbyterian of the Kirk of Scotland, and 
stand by her and the General Assembly, and the due admin- 
istration of justice by the fifteen Lords o’ Session and the five 
Lords o’ Justiciary.’ 

‘ Out upon ye, Mr. Saddletree ! ’ exclaimed David, who, in an 
opportunity of giving his testimony on the offences and back- 
slidings of the land, forgot for a moment his own domestic 
calamity — ‘ out upon your General Assembly, and the back of 
my hand to your Court o’ Session ! What is the tane but a 
waefu’ bunch o’ cauldrife professors and ministers, that sate 
bien and warm when the persecuted remnant were warstling 
wi’ hunger, and cauld, and fear of death, and danger of fire and 
sword, upon wet brae -sides, peat-hags, and flow -mosses, and 
that now creep out of their holes, like bluebottle flees in a 
blink of sunshine, to take the pu’pits and places of better 
folk — of them that witnessed, and testified, and fought, and 
endured pit, prison-house, and transportation beyond seas? 
A bonny bike there’s o’ them ! And for your Court o’ 
Session ’ 

‘ Ye may say what ye will o’ the General Assembly,’ said 
Saddletree, interrupting him, ‘and let them clear them that 
kens them ; but as for the Lords o’ Session, forbye that they 
are my next-door neighbours, I would have ye ken, for your ain 
regulation, that to raise scandal anent them, whilk is termed, 
to “ murmur again ” them, is a crime sui generis — sui generis, 
Mr. Deans ; ken ye what that amounts to ? ’ 

‘ I ken little o’ the language of Antichrist,’ said Deans ; ‘and 
I care less than little what carnal courts may call the speeches 
of honest men. And as to murmur again them, it’s what a’ the 
folk that loses their pleas, and nine-tenths o’ them that win 
them, will be gay sure to be guilty in. Sae I w^ad hae ye ken 
that I hand a’ your gleg-tongued advocates, that sell their 
knowledge for pieces of silver, and your worldly-wise judges, 
that will gie three days of hearing in presence to a debate about 
the peeling of an ingan, and no ae half-hour to the Gospel testi- 
mony, as legalists and formalists, countenancing, by sentences, 
and quirks, and cunning terms of law, the late begun courses 
of national defections — union, toleration, patronages, and Yeras- 
tian prelatic oaths. As for the soul and body-killing Court o’ 
Justiciary ’ 

The habit of considering his life as dedicated to bear testi- 
mony in behalf of what he deemed the suffering and deserted 


124 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


cause of true religion had swept honest David along with it 
thus far ; but with the mention of the criminal court, the re- 
collection of the disastrous condition of his daughter rushed 
at once on his mind ; he stopped short in the midst of his 
triumphant declamation, pressed his hands against his forehead, 
and remained silent. 

Saddletree was somewhat moved, but apparently not so much 
so as to induce him to relinquish the privilege of prosing in 
his turn, afforded him by David’s sudden silence. ‘ Nae doubt, 
neighbour,’ he said, ‘it’s a sair thing to hae to do wi’ courts of 
law, unless it be to improve ane’s knowledge and practique, by 
v/aiting on as a hearer ; and touching this unhappy affair of 
Effie — ye’ll hae seen the dittay, doubtless ? ’ He dragged out 
of his pocket a bundle of papers, and began to turn them over. 
‘ This is no it : this is the information of Mungo Marsport, of 
that ilk, against Captain Lackland, for coming on his lands of 
Marsport with hawks, hounds, lying-dogs, nets, guns, cross-bows, 
hagbuts of found, or other engines more or less for destruction 
of game, sic as red-deer, fallow-deer, caper-cailzies, grey-fowl, 
moor-fowl, paitricks, herons, and sic-like ; he the said defender 
not being ane qualified person, in terms of the statute 1621 ; 
that is, not having ane plough -gate of land. Now, the 
defences proponed say that non constat at this present what 
is a plough -gate of land, whilk uncertainty is sufficient to 
elide the conclusions of the libel. But then the answers 
to the defences — they are signed by Mr. Crossmyloof, but 
Mr. Younglad drew them — they propone that it signifies nae- 
thing, in hoc statu, what or how muckle a plough -gate of 
land may be, in respect the defender has nae lands whatsoe’er, 
less or mair. “Sae grant a plough -gate (here Saddletree 
read from the paper in his hand) to be less than the nine- 
teenth part of a guse’s grass ” — I trow Mr. Crossmyloof put in 
that, I ken his style — “ of a guse’s grass, what the better will 
the defender be, seeing he hasna a divot-cast of land in Scot- 
land? Advocatus for Lackland duplies that, nihil interest de 
possessione, the pursuer must put his case under the statute ” — 
now this is worth your notice, neighbour — “ and must show, 
formaliter et specialiter, as well as generaliter, what is the quali- 
fication that defender Lackland does not possess : let him tell 
me what a plough-gate of land is, and I’ll tell him if I have 
one or no. Surely the pursuer is bound to understand his own 
libel and his own statute that he founds upon. Titius pursues 
Majvius for recovery of ane hlach horse lent to Msevius ; surely 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN ' 


125 


he shall have judgment. But if Titius pursue Msevius for ane 
scarlet or crimson horse, doubtless he shall be bound to show 
that there is sic ane animal in rerum natura. No man can be 
bound to plead to nonsense, that is to say, to a charge which 
cannot be explained or understood” — he’s wrang there, the 
better the pleadings the fewer understand them — “and so the 
reference unto this undefined and unintelligible measure of land 
is, as if a penalty was inflicted by statute for any man who suld 
hunt or hawk, or use lying-dogs, and wearing a sky-blue pair 

of breeches, without having ” But I am wearying you, Mr. 

Deans; we’ll pass to your ain business, though this case of 
Marsport against Lackland has made an unco- din in the Outer 
House. Weel, here’s the dittay against puir Effie : “Whereas 
it is humbly meant and shown to us,” etc. — they are words of 
mere style — “ that whereas, by the laws of this and every other 
well-regulated realm, the murder of any one, more especially of 
an infant child, is a crime of ane high nature, and severely 
punishable : And whereas, without prejudice to the foresaid 
generality, it was, by ane act made in the second session of the 
First Parliament of our most High and Dread Soveraigns 
William and Mary, especially enacted, that ane woman who 
shall have concealed her condition, and shall not be able to 
show that she hath called for help at the birth, in case that 
the child shall be found dead or amissing, shall be deemed and 
held guilty of the murder thereof ; and the said facts of conceal- 
ment and pregnancy being found proven or confessed, shall 
sustain the pains of law accordingly ; yet, nevertheless, you, 
Effie or Euphemia Deans ” ’ 

‘ Read no farther ! ’ said Deans, raising his head up ; ‘I 
would rather ye thrust a sword into my heart than read a 
word farther ! ’ 

‘ Weel, neighbour,’ said Saddletree, ‘ I thought it wad hae 
comforted ye to ken the best and the warst o’t. But the 
question is, what’s to be dune V 

‘Nothing,’ answered Deans, firmly, ‘but to abide the dis- 
pensation that the Lord sees meet to send us. 0, if it had 
been His will to take the grey head to rest before this awful 
visitation on my house and name ! But His will be done. I 
can say that yet, though I can say little mair.’ 

‘But, neighbour,’ said Saddletree, ‘ye’ll retain advocates for 
the puir lassie ? it’s a thing maun needs be thought of.’ 

‘ If there was ae man of them,’ answered Deans, ‘ that held 
fast his integrity— but I ken them weel, they are a’ carnal, 


126 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


crafty, and warld- hunting self-seekers, Yerastians and Ar- 
minians, every ane o’ them.’ 

‘ Hout tout, neighbour, ye maunna take the warld at its 
word,’ said Saddletree ; ‘ the very deil is no sae ill as he’s ca’d ; 
and I ken mair than ae advocate that may be said to hae some 
integrity as weel as their neighbours; that is, after a sort o’ 
fashion o’ their ain.’ 

‘It is indeed but a fashion of integrity that ye will find 
amang them,’ replied David Deans, ‘ and a fashion of wisdom, 
and fashion of carnal learning — gazing glancing -glasses they 
are, fit only to fling the glaiks in folks’ een, wi’ their pawky 
policy, and earthly ingine, their flights and refinements, and 
periods of eloquence, frae heathen emperors and popish canons. 
They canna, in that daft trash ye were reading to me, sae 
miickle as ca’ men that are sae ill-starred as to be amang their 
hands by ony name o’ the dispensation o’ grace, but maun 
new baptize them by the names of the accursed Titus, wha 
was made the instrument of burning the holy Temple, and 
other sic like heathens.’ , * 

‘ It’s Tishius,’ interrupted Saddletree, ‘ and no Titus. Mr. 
Crossmyloof cares as little about Titus or the Latin learning as 
ye do. But it’s a case of necessity : she maun hae counsel. 
Now, I could speak to Mr. Crossmyloof ; he’s weel kenn’d for a 
round-spun Presbyterian, and a ruling elder to boot.’ 

‘ He’s a rank Yerastian,’ replied Deans ; ‘ one of the public 
and polititious warldly-wise men that stude up to prevent ane 
general owning of the cause in the day of power.’ 

‘ What say ye to the auld Laird of Cuffabout ? ’ said Saddle- 
tree ; ‘he whiles thumps the dust out of a case gay and week’ 

‘ He ! the fause loon ! ’ answered Deans. ‘ He was in his 
bandaliers to hae joined the ungracious Highlanders in 1715, 
an they had ever had the luck to cross the Firth.’ 

‘Weel, Arniston? there’s a clever chield for ye!’ said 
Bartoline, triumphantly. 

‘ Ay, to bring popish medals in till their very library from 
that schismatic woman in the north, the Duchess of Gordon.’ * 

‘Weel, weel, but somebody ye maun hae. What think ye 
o’ Kittlepunt ? ’ 

‘ He’s an Arminian.’ 

‘ Woodsetter ? ’ 

* James Dundas, younger of Arniston, was tried in the year 1711 upon a charge of 
le^sing-inaking, in having presented, from the Duchess of Gordon, a medal of the 
Pretender, for the purpose, it was said, of aflronting Queen Anne (Laing). 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


127 


‘ He’s, I doubt, a Cocceian.’ 

‘ Auld Whilliewhaw ? ’ 

‘ He’s ony thing ye like.’ 

‘Young Nsemmo?’ 

‘ He’s naething at a’.’ 

‘Ye’re ill to please, neighbour,’ said Saddletree. ‘I hae run 
ower the pick o’ them for you, ye maun e’en choose for your- 
sell ; but bethink ye that in the multitude of counsellors there’s 
safety. What say ye to try young Mackenyie ? he has a’ his 
uncle’s practiques at the tongue’s end.’ 

‘ What, sir, wad ye speak to me,’ exclaimed the sturdy Pres- 
byterian in excessive wrath, ‘ about a man that has the blood 
of the saints at his fingers’ ends ? Didna his erne die and gang 
to his place wi’ the name of the Bluidy Mackenyie ? and winna 
he be kenn’d by that name sae lang as there’s a Scots tongue to 
speak the word ? If the life of the dear baini that’s under a 
suffering dispensation, and Jeanie’s, and my ain, and a’ man- 
kind’s, depended on my asking sic a slave o’ Satan to speak a 
word for me or them, they should a’ gae down the water the- 
gither for Davie Deans ! ’ 

It was the exalted tone in which he spoke this last sentence 
that broke up the conversation between Butler and Jeanie, and 
brought them both ‘ben the house,’ to use the language of 
the country. Here they found the poor old man half frantic 
between grief and zealous ire against Saddletree’s proposed 
measures, his cheek inflamed, his hand clenched, and his voice 
raised, while the tear in his eye, and the occasional quiver of 
his accents, showed that his utmost efforts Avere inadequate to 
shaking off the consciousness of his misery. Butler, appre- 
hensive of the consequences of his agitation to an aged and 
feeble frame, ventured to utter to him a recommendation to 
patiencei 

‘ I am patient,’ returned the old man, sternly, ‘ more patient 
than any one who is alive to the woeful backslidings of a miser- 
able time can be patient ; and in so much, that I need neither 
sectarians, nor sons nor grandsons of sectarians, to instruct 
my grey hairs how to bear my cross.’ 

‘ But, sir,’ continued Butler, taking no offence at the slur 
cast on his grandfather’s faith, ‘ we must use human means. 
When you call in a physician, you Avould not, I suppose, 
question him on the nature of his religious principles ? ’ 

‘ Wad I no V answered David. ‘ But I wad, though ; and if 
he didna satisfy me that he had a right sense of the right-hand 


128 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


and left-hand defections of the day, not a goutte of his physic 
should gang through my father’s son.’ 

It is a dangerous thing to trust to an illustration. Butler 
had done so and miscarried ; but, like a gallant soldier when 
his musket misses fire, he stood his ground and charged with 
the bayonet. ‘ This is too rigid an interpretation of your duty, 
sir. The sun shines, and the rain descends, on the just and 
unjust, and they are placed together in life in circumstances 
which frequently render intercourse between them indispens- 
able, perhaps that the evil may have an opportunity of being 
converted by the good, and perhaps, also, that the righteous 
might, among other trials, be subjected to that of occasional 
converse with the profane.’ 

‘Ye’re a silly callant, Reuben,’ answered Deans, ‘with your 
bits of argument. Can a man touch pitch and not be defiled ? 
Or what think ye of the brave and worthy champions of the 
Covenant, that wadna sae muckle as hear a minister speak, be 
his gifts and graces as they would, that hadna witnessed against 
the enormities of the day ? Nae lawyer shall ever speak for 
me and mine that hasna concurred in the testimony of the 
scattered yet lovely remnant which abode in the clifts of the 
rocks.’ 

So saying, and as if fatigued both with the arguments and 
presence of his guests, the old man arose, and seeming to bid 
them adieu with a motion of his head and hand, went to shut 
himself up in his sleeping-apartment. 

‘It’s thrawing his daughter’s life awa’,’ ,said Saddletree to 
Butler, ‘ to hear him speak in that daft gate. Where will he 
ever get a Cameronian advocate? Or wha ever heard of a 
lawyer’s suffering either for ae religion or another? The 
lassie’s life is clean flung awa’.’ 

During the latter part of this debate, Dumbiedikes had 
arrived at the door, dismounted, hung the pony’s bridle on the 
usual hook, and sunk down on his ordinary settle. His eyes, 
with more than their usual animation, followed first one speaker, 
then another, till he caught the melancholy sense of the whole 
from Saddletree’s last words. He rose from his seat, stumped 
slowly across the room, and, coming close up to Saddletree’s 
ear, said, in a tremulous, anxious voice, ‘Will — will siller do 
naething for them, Mr. Saddletree ? ’ 

‘Umph!’ said Saddletree, looking grave, ‘siller will cer- 
tainly do it in the Parliament House, if ony thing can do it ; 
but whare’s the siller to come frae ? Mr. Deans, ye see, will do 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


129 


naething ; and though Mrs. Saddletree’s their far-awa’ friend 
and right good weel-wisher, and is weel disposed to assist, yet 
she wadna like to stand to be bound singuli in solidum to such 
an expensive wark. An ilka friend wad bear a share o’ the 
burden, something might be dune, ilka ane to be liable for 
their ain input. I wadna like to see the case fa’ through with- 
out being pled ; it wadna be creditable, for a’ that daft Whig 
body says.’ 

‘I’ll — I will — yes (assuming fortitude), I will be answer- 
able,’ said Dumbiedikes, ‘ for a score of punds sterling.’ And 
he was silent, staring in astonishment at finding himself capable 
of such unwonted resolution and excessive generosity. 

‘ God Almighty bless ye, Laird ! ’ said Jeanie, in a transport 
of gratitude. 

‘ Ye may ca’ the twenty punds thretty,’ said Dumbiedikes, 
looking bashfully away from her, and towards Saddletree. 

‘ That will do bravely,’ said Saddletree, rubbing his hands ; 

‘ and ye sail hae a’ my skill and knowledge to gar the siller 
gang far. I’ll tape it out weel ; I ken how to gar the birkies 
tak short fees, and be glad o’ them too : it’s only garring them 
trow ye hae twa or three cases of importance coming on, and 
they’ll work cheap to get custom. Let me alane for whilly- 
whaing an advocate. It’s nae sin to get as muckle frae them 
for our siller as we can; after a’, it’s but the wind o’ their 
mouth, it costs them naething ; whereas, in my wretched 
occupation of a saddler, horse-milliner, and harness-maker, we 
are out unconscionable sums just for barkened hides and 
leather.’ 

‘ Can I be of no use ? ’ said Butler. ‘ My means, alas ! are 
only worth the black coat I wear; but I am young, I owe 
much to the family. Can I do nothing ’ 

‘ Ye can help to collect evidence, sir,’ said Saddletree ; ‘ if we 
could but find ony ane to say she had gien the least hint o’ her 
condition, she wad be brought aff wi’ a wat finger. Mr. Cross- 
myloof tell’d me sae. “ The crown,” says he, “ canna be craved 
to prove a positive” — was’t a positive or a negative they couldna 
be ca’d to prove ? it was the tane or the tither o’ them, I am 
sure, and it maksna muckle matter whilk. “Wherefore,” says 
he, “the libel maun be redargued by the panel proving her 
defences. And it canna be done otherwise.” ’ 

‘ But the fact, sir,’ argued Butler— ‘ the fact that this poor 
girl has borne a child ; surely the crown lawyers must prove 
that 1 ’ said Butler. 


VII 


9 


130 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Saddletree paused a moment, while the visage of Dumhie- 
dikes, which traversed, as if it had been placed on a pivot, 
from the one spokesman to the other, assumed a more blythe 
expression. 

‘ Ye — ye — ye — es,’ said Saddletree, after some grave hesita- 
tion ; ‘ unquestionably that is a thing to be proved, as the court 
will more fully declare by an interlocutor of relevancy in 
common form ; but I fancy that job’s done already, for she has 
confessed her guilt.’ 

‘Confessed the murder?’ exclaimed Jeanie, with a scream 
that made them all start. 

‘ No, I didna say that,’ replied Bartoline. ‘ But she confessed 
bearing the babe.’ 

‘ And what became of it, then ? ’ said Jeanie ; ‘ for not a word 
could I get from her but bitter sighs and tears.’ 

‘ She says it was taken away from her by the woman in 
whose house it was born, and who assisted her at the time.’ 

‘ And who was that woman ? ’ said Butler. ‘ Surely by her 
means the truth might be discovered. Who was she ? I will 
fly to her directly.’ 

‘ I wish,’ said Dumbiedikes, ‘ I were as young and as supple 
as you, and had the gift of the gab as week’ 

‘ Who is she ? ’ again reiterated Butler, impatiently. ‘ Who 
could that woman be ? ’ 

‘Ay, wha kens that but hersell,’ said Saddletree; ‘she 
deponed further, and declined to answer that interrogatory.’ 

‘ Then to herself will I instantly go,’ said Butler ; ‘ farewell, 
Jeanie.’ Then coming close up to her — ‘ Take no rask steps till 
you hear from me. Farewell ! ’ and he immediately left the 
cottage. 

‘ I wad gang too,’ said the landed proprietor in an anxious, 
jealous, and repining tone, ‘but my powny winna for the life o’ 
me gang ony other road than just frae Dumbiedikes to this 
house-end, and sae straight back again.’ 

‘Ye’ll do better for them,’ said Saddletree, as they left the 
house together, ‘ by sending me the thretty punds.’ 

‘ Thretty punds ? ’ hesitated Dumbiedikes, who was now out 
of the reach of those eyes which had inflamed his generosity. 
‘ I only said twenty punds.’ 

‘ Ay ; but,’ said Saddletree, ‘ that was under protestation to 
add and eik ; and so ye craved leave to amend your libel, and 
made it thretty.’ 

‘ Did I ? I dinna mind that I did,’ answered Dumbiedikes. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


131 


‘ But whatever I said I’ll stand to.’ Then bestriding his steed 
with some difficulty, he added, ‘Dinna ye think poor Jeanie’s 
een wi’ the tears in them glanced like lamour beads, Mr. 
Saddletree % ’ 

‘I kenna muckle about women’s een, Laird,’ replied the 
insensible Bartoline; ‘and I care just as little. I wuss I were 
as weel free o’ their tongues ; though few wives,’ he added, re- 
collecting the necessity of keeping up his character for domestic 
rule, ‘are undpr better command than mine, Laird. I allow 
neither perduellion nor lese-majesty against my sovereign 
authority.’ 

The Laird saw nothing so important in this observation as 
to call for a rejoinder, and when they had exchanged a mute 
salutation, they parted in peace upon their different errands. 


CHAPTER XIII 


I’ll warrant that fellow from drowning, were the ship no stronger 
than a nut-shell. 

The Tempest. 

Butler felt neither fatigue nor want of refreshment, although, 
from the mode in which he had spent the night, he might well 
have been overcome with either. But in the earnestness with 
which he hastened to the assistance of the sister of Jeanie Deans 
he forgot both. 

In his first progress he walked with so rapid a pace as almost 
approached to running, when he was surprised to hear behind 
him a call upon his name, contending with an asthmatic cough, 
and half-drowned amid the resounding trot of an Highland pony. 
He looked behind, and saw the Laird of Dumbiedikes making 
after him with what speed he might, for it happened fortunately 
for the Laird’s purpose of conversing with Butler, that his own 
road homeward was for about two hundred yards the same with 
that which led by the nearest way to the city. Butler stopped 
when he heard himself thus summoned, internally wishing no 
good to the panting equestrian who thus retarded his journey. 

‘ Uh ! nh ! uh ! ’ ejaculated Dumbiedikes, as he checked the 
hobbling pace of the pony by our friend Butler. ‘ Uh ! uh ! it’s 
a hard-set willyard beast this o’ mine.’ He had in fact just 
overtaken the object of his chase at the very point beyond 
which it would have been absolutely impossible for him to have 
continued the pursuit, since there Butler’s road parted from 
that leading to Dumbiedikes, and no means of influence or 
compulsion which the rider could possibly have used towards 
his Bucephalus could have induced the Celtic obstinacy of Rory 
Bean (such was the pony’s name) to have diverged a yard from 
the path that conducted him to his own paddock. 

Even when he had recovered from the shortness of breath 
occasioned by a trot much more rapid than Rory or he were 
accustomed to, the high purpose of Dumbiedikes seemed to stick 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


133 


as it were in his throat, and impede his utterance, so that Bntler 
stood for nearly three minutes ere he could utter a syllable ; 
and when he did find voice, it was only to say, after one or two 
efforts, ‘ Uh ! uh ! uhm ! I say, Mr. — Mr. Butler, it’s a braw day 
for the har’st.’ 

‘ Fine day, indeed,’ said Butler. ‘ I wish you good morning, 
sir.’ 

‘ Stay — stay a bit,’ rejoined Dumbiedikes ; ‘ that was no what 
I had gotten to say.’ 

‘Then, pray be quick and let me have your commands,’ 
rejoined Butler. ‘ I crave your pardon, but I am in haste, and 
Temptts nemini — you know the proverb.’ 

Dumbiedikes did not know the proverb, nor did he even take 
the trouble to endeavour to look as if he did, as others in his 
place might have done. He was concentrating all his intellects 
for one grand proposition, and could not afford any detachment 
to defend outposts. ‘ I say, Mr. Butler,’ said he, ‘ ken ye if Mr. 
Saddletree’s a great lawyer ? ’ 

‘I have no person’s word for it but his own,’ answered 
Butler, dryly ; ‘ but undoubtedly he best understands his own 
qualities.’ 

‘ Umph ! ’ replied the taciturn Dumbiedikes, in a tone which 
seemed to say, ‘ Mr. Butler, I take your meaning.’ ‘ In that 
case,’ he pursued, ‘I’ll employ my ain man o’ business, Nichil 
Novit — auld Nichil’s son, and amaist as gleg as his father — to 
agent Effie’s plea.’ 

And having thus displayed more sagacity than Butler ex- 
pected from him, he courteously touched his gold-laced cocked 
hat, and by a punch on the ribs conveyed to Rory Bean it was 
his rider’s pleasure that he should forthwith proceed home- 
wards; a hint which the quadruped obeyed with that degree of 
alacrity with which men and animals interpret and obey sug- 
gestions that entirely correspond with their own inclinations. 

Butler resumed his pace, not without a momentary revival 
of that jealousy which the honest Laird’s attention to the family 
of Deans had at different times excited in his bosom. But he 
was too generous long to nurse any feeling which was allied to 
selfishness. ‘He is,’ said Butler to himself, ‘rich in what I 
want ; why should I feel vexed that he has the heart to dedicate 
some of his pelf to render them services which I can only form 
the empty wish of executing ? In God’s name, let us each do 
what we can. May she be but happy ! saved from the misery 
and disgrace that seems impending ! Let me but find the means 


134 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


of preventing the fearful experiment of this evening, and fare- 
well to other thoughts, though my heart-strings break in parting 
with them ! ’ 

He redoubled his pace, and soon stood before the door of 
the tolbooth, or rather before the entrance where the door had 
formerly been placed. His interview with the mysterious 
stranger, the message to Jeanie, his agitating conversation with 
her on the subject of breaking off their mutual engagements, 
and the interesting scene with old Deans, had so entirely 
occupied his mind as to drown even recollection of the tragical 
event which he had witnessed the preceding evening. His 
attention was not recalled to it by the groups who stood 
scattered on the street in conversation, which they hushed when 
strangers approached, or by the bustling search of the agents of 
the city police, supported by small parties of the military, or by 
the appearance of the guard-house, before which were treble 
sentinels, or, finally, by the subdued and intimidated looks of 
the lower orders of society, who, conscious that they were liable 
to suspicion, if they were not guilty, of accession to a riot likely 
to be strictly inquired into, glided about with an humble and 
dismayed aspect, like men whose spirits being exhausted in the 
revel and the dangers of a desperate debauch overnight, are nerve- 
shaken, timorous, and unenterprising on the succeeding day. 

None of these symptoms of alarm and trepidation struck 
Butler, whose mind was occupied with a different, and to him still 
more interesting, subject, until he stood before the entrance to 
the prison, and saw it defended by a double file of grenadiers, 
instead of bolts and bars. Their ‘ Stand, stand ! ’ the blackened 
appearance of the doorless gateway, and the winding staircase 
and apartments of the tolbooth, now open to the public eye, 
recalled the whole proceedings of the eventful night. Upon 
his requesting to speak with Effie Deans, the same tall, thin, 
silver-haired turnkey whom he had seen on the preceding even- 
ing made his appearance. 

‘ I think,’ he replied to Butler’s request of admission, with 
true Scottish indirectness, ‘ ye will be the same lad that was for 
in to see her yestreen 1 ’ 

Butler admitted he was the same person. 

‘And I am thinking,’ pursued the turnkey, ‘that ye speered 
at me when we locked up, and if we locked up earlier on account 
of Porteous ? ’ 

‘Very likely I might make some such observation,’ said 
Butler ; ‘ but the question now is, can I see Effie Deans ? ’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


135 


‘ I dinna ken ; gang in bye, and up the turnpike stair, and 
turn till the ward on the left hand.’ 

The old man followed close behind him, with his keys in his 
hand, not forgetting even that huge one which had once opened 
and shut the outward gate of his dominions, though at present 
it was but an idle and useless burden. No sooner had Butler 
entered the room to which he was directed, than the experienced 
hand of the warder selected the proper key, and locked it on 
the outside. At first Butler conceived this manoeuvre was only 
an effect of the man’s habitual and official caution and jealousy. 
But when he heard the hoarse command, ‘ Turn out the guard ! ’ 
and immediately afterwards heard the clash of a sentinel’s arms, 
as he was posted at the door of his apartment, he again called 
out to jihe turnkey, ‘ My good friend, I have business of some 
consequence with Effie Deans, and I beg to see her as soon as 
possible.’ No answer was returned. ‘If it be against your 
rules to admit me,’ repeated Butler, in a still louder tone, ‘ to 
see the prisoner, I beg you will tell me so, and let me go 
about my business. Fugit irrevocahile tempus ! ’ muttered he 
to himself. 

‘ If ye had business to do, ye suld hae dune it before ye cam 
here,’ replied the man of keys from the outside; ‘ye’ll find it’s 
easier wunnin in than wunnin out here. There’s sma’ likelihood 
o’ another Porteous Mob coming to rabble us again : the law 
will hand her ain now, neighbour, and that ye’ll find to your 
cost.’ 

‘ What do you mean by that, sir ? ’ retorted Butler. ‘ You 
must mistake me for some other person. My name is Reuben 
Butler, preacher of the Gospel.’ 

‘ I ken that weel eneugh,’ said the turnkey. 

‘ Well, then, if you know me, I have a right to know from 
you in return, what warrant you have for detaining me ; that, 
I know, is the right of every British subject.’ 

‘ Warrant ! ’ said the jailor. ‘ The warrant’s awa’ to Liberton 
wi’ twa sheriff officers seeking ye. If ye had staid at hame, as 
honest men should do, ye wad hae seen the warrant ; but if ye 
come to be incarcerated of your ain accord, wha can help it, 
' my jo ?’ 

‘So I cannot see Effie Deans, then,’ said Butler; ‘and you 
are determined not to let me out ? ’ 

‘ Troth will I no, neighbour,’ answered the old man, doggedly ; 
‘as for Effie Deans, ye’ll hae eneugh ado to mind your ain 
business, and let her mind hers ; and for letting you out, that 


136 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


maun be as the magistrate will determine. And fare ye weel 
for a bit, for I maun see Deacon Sawyers put on ane or twa 
o’ the doors that your quiet folk broke down yesternight, Mr. 
Butler.’ 

There was something in this exquisitely provoking, but there 
was also something darkly alarming. To be imprisoned, even 
on a false accusation, has something in it disagreeable and 
menacing even to men of more constitutional courage than 
Butler had to boast ; for although he had much of that resolution 
which arises from a sense of duty and an honourable desire to 
discharge it, yet, as his imagination was lively and his frame of 
body delicate, he was far from possessing that cool insensibility 
to danger which is the happy portion of men of stronger health, 
more firm nerves, and less acute sensibility. An indistinct idea 
of peril, which he could neither understand nor ward off, seemed 
to float before his eyes. He tried to think over the events of 
the preceding night, in hopes of discovering some means of ex- 
plaining or vindicating his conduct for appearing among the 
mob, since it immediately occurred to him that his detention 
must be founded on that circumstance. And it was with anxiety 
that he found he could not recollect to have been under the 
observation of any disinterested witness in the attempts that 
he made from time to time to expostulate with the rioters, and 
to prevail on them to release him. The distress of Deans’s 
family, the dangerous rendezvous which Jeanie had formed, and 
which he could not now hope to interrupt, had also their share 
in his unpleasant reflections. Yet impatient as he was to 
receive an ^claircissement upon the cause of his confinement, 
and if possible to obtain his liberty, he was affected with a 
trepidation which seemed no good omen, when, after remaining 
an hour in this solitary apartment, he received a summons to 
attend the sitting magistrate. He was conducted from prison 
strongly guarded by a party of soldiers, with a parade of pre- 
caution that, however ill-timed and unnecessary, is generally 
displayed after an event, which such precaution, if used in time, 
might have prevented. 

He was introduced into the Council Chamber, as the place 
is called where the magistrates hold their sittings, and which 
was then at a little distance from the prison. One or two of 
the senators of the city were present, and seemed about to 
engage in the examination of an individual who was brought 
forward to the foot of the long green-covered table round which 
the council usually assembled. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


137 


‘ Is that the preacher ? ’ said one of the magistrates, as the 
city officer in attendance introduced Butler. The man answered 
in the affirmative. ‘ Let him sit down there for an instant ; we 
will finish this man’s business very briefly.’ 

‘ Shall we remove Mr. Butler ? ’ queried the assistant. 

‘ It is not necessary. Let him remain where he is.’ 

Butler accordingly sate down on a bench at the bottom of 
the apartment, attended by one of his keepers. 

It was a large room, partially and imperfectly lighted ; but 
by chance, or the skill of the architect, who might happen to 
remember the advantage which might occasionally be derived 
from such an arrangement, one windoAV was so placed as to 
throw a strong light at the foot of the table at Avhich prisoners 
were usually posted for examination, while the upper end, where 
the examinants sate, was thrown into shadow. Butler’s eyes 
Avere instantly fixed on the person whose examination was at 
present proceeding, in the idea that he might recognise some 
one of the conspirators of the former night. But though the 
features of this man were sufficiently marked and striking, he 
could not recollect that he had ever seen them before. 

The complexion of this person AA^as dark, and his age some- 
what advanced. He Av^ore his OAvn hair, combed smooth down, 
and cut very short. It Avas jet black, slightly curled by nature, 
and already mottled with grey. The man’s face expressed rather 
knavery than vice, and a disposition to sharpness, cunning, and 
roguery, more than the traces of stormy and indulged passions. 
His sharp, quick black eyes, acute features, ready sardonic smile, 
promptitude, and effrontery, gave him altogether what is called 
among the vulgar a knowing look, which generally implies a 
tendency to knavery. At a fair or market, you could not for a 
moment have doubted that he Avas a horse -jockey, intimate 
Avith all the tricks of his trade; yet had you met him on a 
moor, you would not have apprehended any violence from him. 
His dress Avas also that of a horse-dealer — a close -buttoned 
jockey -coat, or Avrap- rascal, as it was then termed, Avith huge 
metal buttons, coarse blue upper stockings, called boot-hose, be- 
cause supplying the place of boots, and a slouched hat. He only 
wanted a loaded whip under his arm and a spur upon one heel 
to complete the dress of the character he seemed to represent. 

‘Your name is James RatclifleT said the magistrate. 

‘ Ay, alAA’^ays wi’ your honour’s leave.’ 

‘ That is to say, you could find me another name if I did not 
like that one ? ’ 


138 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ Twenty to pick and choose upon, always with your honour’s 
leave,’ resumed the respondent. 

‘ But James RatclifFe is your present name What is your 
, trade ? ’ 

‘ I canna just say, distinctly, that I have what ye wad ca’ 
preceesely a trade.’ 

‘But,’ repeated the magistrate, ‘w^hat are your means of 
living — your occupation ? ’ 

‘ Hout tout, your honour, wi’ your leave, kens that as weel 
as I do,’ replied the examined. 

‘No matter, I want to hear you describe it,’ said the ex- 
aminant. 

‘ Me describe ? and to your honour 1 Far be it from Jemmie 
Ratcliffe,’ responded the prisoner. 

‘ Come, sir, no trifling ; I insist on an answer.’ 

‘Weel, sir,’ replied the declarant, ‘I maun make a clean 
breast, for ye see, wi’ your leave, I am looking for favour. 
Describe my occupation, quo’ ye ? Troth it will be ill to do 
that, in a feasible way, in a place like this ; but what is’t again 
that the aught command says ? ’ 

‘Thou shalt not steal,’ answered the magistrate. 

‘ Are you sure o’ that ? ’ replied the accused. ‘ Troth, then, 
my occupation and that command are sair at odds, for I read 
it, thou shalt steal ; and that makes an unco difference, though 
there’s but a wee bit word left out.’ 

‘ To cut the matter short, Ratcliffe, you have been a most 
notorious thief,’ said the examinant. 

‘I believe Highlands and Lowlands ken that, sir, forbye 
England and Holland,’ replied Ratcliffe, with the greatest com- 
posure and effrontery. 

‘ And what d’ye think the end of your calling will be ? ’ said 
the magistrate. 

‘ I could have gien a braw guess, yesterday ; but I dinna ken 
sae weel the day,’ answered the prisoner. 

‘ And what would you have said would have been your end, 
had you been asked the question yesterday ? ’ 

‘Just the gallows,’ replied Ratcliffe, with the same composure. 

‘You are a daring rascal, sir,’ said the magistrate; ‘and 
how dare you hope times are mended with you to-day ? ’ 

‘Dear, your honour,’ answered Ratcliffe, ‘there’s muckle 
difference between lying in prison under sentence of death and 
staying there of ane’s ain proper accord, when it would have 
cost a man naething to get up and rin awa’. What was to hinder 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


139 


me from stepping out quietly, when the rabble walked awa’ wi’ 
Jock Porteous yestreen? And does your honour really think I 
staid on purpose to be hanged ? ’ 

‘ I do not know what you may have proposed to yourself ; 
but I know,’ said the magistrate, ‘what the law proposes for 
you, and that is to hang you next Wednesday eight days.’ 

‘ Na, na, your honour,’ said Ratcliffe, firmly ; ‘ craving your 
honour’s pardon. I’ll ne’er believe that till I see it. I have 
kenn’d the law this mony a year, and mony a thrawart job 
I hae had wi’ her first and last; but the auld jaud is no 
sae ill as that comes to ; I aye fand her bark waur than her 
bite.’ 

‘And if you do not expect the gallows, to which you are 
condemned — for the fourth time to my knowledge — may I beg 
the favour to know,’ said the magistrate, ‘ what it is that you 
do expect, in consideration of your not having taken your flight 
with the rest of the jail-birds, which I will admit was a line of 
conduct little to have been expected ? ’ 

‘ I would never have thought for a moment of staying in 
that auld gousty toom house,’ answered Ratcliffe, ‘but that use 
and wont had just gien me a fancy to the place, and I’m just 
expecting a bit post in’t.’ 

‘ A post ! ’ exclaimed the magistrate ; ‘ a whipping-post, I 
suppose, you mean ? ’ 

‘ Na, na, sir, I had nae thoughts o’ a whuppin-post. After 
having been four times doomed to hang by the neck till I "was 
dead, I think I am far beyond being whuppit.’ 

‘ Then, in Heaven’s name, w^hat did you expect ? ’ 

‘Just the post of under-turnkey, for I understand there’s a 
vacancy,’ said the prisoner. ‘ I wadna think of asking the lock- 
man’s * place ower his head ; it wadna suit me sae weel as ither 
folk, for I never could put a beast out o’ the way, much less 
deal wi’ a man.’ 

‘ That’s something in your favour,’ said the magistrate, mak- 
ing exactly the inference to which Ratcliffe was desirous to lead 
him, though he mantled his art with an affectation of oddity. 
‘But,’ continued the magistrate, ‘how do you think you can be 
trusted with a charge in the prison, when you have broken at 
your own hand half the jails in Scotland ? ’ 

‘ Wi’ your honour'’s leave,’ said Ratcliffe, ‘ if I kenn’d sae weel 
how to wun out mysell, it’s like I wad be a’ the better a hand 
to keep other folk in. I think they wad ken their business 

* See Note 18. 


140 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


weel that held me in when I wanted to be out, or wan out when 
I wanted to hand them in.’ 

The remark seemed to strike the magistrate, but he made 
no farther immediate observation, only desired RatclifFe to be 
removed. 

When this daring and yet sly freebooter was out of hearing, 
the magistrate asked the city-clerk, ‘what he thought of the 
fellow’s assurance ? ’ 

‘It’s no for me to say, sir,’ replied the clerk; ‘but if James 
RatclifFe be inclined to turn to good, there is not a man e’er 
came within the ports of the burgh could be of sae muckle use 
to the Good Town in the thief and lock-up line of business. I’ll 
speak to Mr. Sharpitlaw about him.’ 

Upon RatclifFe’s retreat, Butler was placed at the table for 
examination. The magistrate conducted his inquiry civilly, 
but yet in a manner which gave him to understand that he 
laboured under strong suspicion. With a frankness which at 
once became his calling and character, Butler avowed his 
involuntary presence at the murder of Porteous, and, at the 
request of the magistrate, entered into a minute detail of the 
circumstances which attended that unhappy afFair. All the pan 
ticulars, such as we have narrated, were taken minutely down 
by the clerk from Butler’s dictation. 

When the narrative was concluded, the cross-examination 
commenced, which it is a painful task even for the most candid 
witness to undergo, since a story, especially if connected with 
agitating and alarming incidents, can scarce be so clearly and 
distinctly told, but that some ambiguity and doubt may bo 
thrown upon it by a string of successive and minute inter- 
rogatories. 

The magistrate commenced by observing, that Butler had 
said his object was to return to the village of Liberton, but 
that he was interrupted by the mob at the West Port. ‘Is 
the West Port your usual way of leaving town when you go to 
Liberton ? ’ said the magistrate, wdth a sneer. 

‘No, certainly,’ answered Butler, with the haste of a man 
anxious to vindicate the accuracy of his evidence ; ‘ but I 
chanced to be nearer that port than any other, and the hour of 
shutting the gates was on the point of striking.’ 

‘That was unlucky,’ said the magistrate, dryly. ‘Pray, 
being, as you say, under coercion and fear of the lawless multi- 
tude, and compelled to accompany them through scenes disagree- 
able to all men of humanity, and more especially irreconcilable 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


141 


to the profession of a minister, did you not attempt to struggle, 
resist, or escape from their violence ? ’ 

Butler replied, ‘ that their numbers prevented him from at- 
tempting resistance, and their vigilance from effecting his escape.’ 

‘ That was unlucky,’ again repeated the magistrate, in the 
same dry inacquiescent tone of voice and manner. He pro- 
ceeded with decency and politeness, but with a stiffness which 
argued his continued suspicion, to ask many questions concern- 
ing the behaviour of the mob, the manners and dress of the 
ringleaders ; and when he conceived that the caution of Butler, 
if he was deceiving him, must be lulled asleep, the magistrate 
suddenly and artfully returned to former parts of his declaration, 
and required a new recapitulation of the circumstances, to the 
minutest and most trivial point, which attended each part of 
the melancholy scene. No confusion or contradiction, however, 
occurred, that could countenance the suspicion which he seemed 
to have adopted against Butler. At length the train of his 
interrogatories reached Madge Wildfire, at whose name the 
magistrate and town-clerk exchanged significant glances. If 
the fate of the Good Town had depended on her careful magis- 
trate’s knowing the features and dress of this personage, his 
inquiries could not have been more particular. But Butler 
could say almost nothing of this person’s features, which were 
disguised apparently with red paint and soot, like an Indian 
going to battle, besides the projecting shade of a curch or coif, 
which muffled the hair of the supposed female. He declared 
that he thought he could not know this Madge Wildfire, if 
placed before him in a different dress, but that he believed he 
might recognise her voice. 

The magistrate requested him again to state by what gate 
he left the city. 

‘ By the Cowgate Port,’ replied Butler. 

‘Was that the nearest road to Liberton?’ 

‘No,’ answered 'Butler, with embarrassment; ‘but it was 
the nearest way to extricate myself from the mob.’ 

The clerk and magistrate again exchanged glances. 

‘ Is the Cowgate Port a nearer way to Liberton from the 
Grassmarket than Bristo Port ? ’ 

‘No,’ replied Butler; ‘but I had to visit a friend.’ 

‘ Indeed 1 ’ said the interrogator. ‘ You were in a hurry to 
tell the sight you had witnessed, I suppose ? ’ 

‘ Indeed I was not,’ replied Butler ; ‘ nor did I speak on the 
subject the whole time I was at St. Leonard’s Crags.’ 


142 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ Which road did you take to St. Leonard’s Crags ? ’ 

‘ By the foot of Salisbury Crags,’ was the reply. 

‘ Indeed ? you seem partial to circuitous routes,’ again said 
the magistrate. ‘ Whom did you see after you left the city 1 ’ 

One by one he obtained a description of every one of the 
groups who had passed Butler, as already noticed, their number, 
demeanour, and appearance, and at length came to the cir- 
cumstance of the mysterious stranger in the King’s Park. On 
this subject Butler would fain have remained silent. But the 
magistrate had no sooner got a slight hint concerning the 
incident, than he seemed bent to possess himself of the most 
minute particulars. 

‘ Look ye, Mr. Butler,’ said he, ‘ you are a young man, and 
bear an excellent character ; so much I will myself testify in 
your favour. But we are aware there has been, at times, a sort 
of bastard and fiery zeal in some of your order, and those men 
irreproachable in other points, which has led them into doing 
and countenancing great irregularities, by which the peace of 
the country is liable to be shaken. I wdll deal plainly with 
you. I am not at all satisfied with this story of your setting 
out again and again to seek your dwelling by two several roads, 
which were both circuitous. And, to be frank, no one whom 
we have examined on this unhappy affair could trace in your 
appearance anything like your acting under compulsion. More- 
over, the waiters at the Cowgate Port observed something like 
the trepidation of guilt in your conduct, and declare that you 
were the first to command them to open the gate, in a tone of 
authority, as if still presiding over the guards and outposts 
of the rabble who had besieged them the whole night.’ 

‘ God forgive them ! ’ said Butler. ‘ I only asked free passage 
for myself ; they must have much misunderstood, if they did 
not wilfully misrepresent, me.’ 

‘Well, Mr. Butler,’ resumed the magistrate, ‘I am inclined 
to judge the best and hope the best, as I am sure I wish the 
best ; but you must be frank with me, if you wish to secure my 
good opinion, and lessen the risk of inconvenience to yourself. 
You have allowed you saw another individual in your passage 
through the King’s Park to St. Leonard’s Crags ; I must know 
every word which passed betwixt you.’ 

Thus closely pressed, Butler, who had no reason for conceal- 
ing what passed at that meeting, unless because Jeanie Deans 
was concerned in it, thought it best to tell the whole truth 
from beginning to end. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


143 


‘Do you suppose,’ said the magistrate, pausing, ‘that the 
young woman will accept an invitation so mysterious ? ’ 

‘ I fear she will,’ replied Butler. • 

‘Why do you use the word “fear” it?’ said the magistrate. 

‘Because I am apprehensive for her safety, in meeting, 
at such a time and place, one who had something of the 
manner of a desperado, and whose message was of a character 
so inexplicable.’ 

‘ Her safety shall be cared for,’ said the magistrate. ‘ Mr, 
Butler, I am concerned I cannot immediately discharge you 
from confinement, but I hope you will not be long detained. 
Remove Mr. Butler, and let him be provided with decent accom- 
modation in all respects.’ 

He was conducted back to the prison accordingly ; but, in 
the food offered to him, as well as in the apartment in which 
he was lodged, the recommendation of the magistrate was 
strictly attended to. 


CHAPTER XIV 


Dark and eerie was the night, 

And lonely was the way, 

As Janet, wi’ her gi-een man tell. 

To Miles’ Cross she did gae. 

Old Ballad. 

Leaving Butler to all the uncomfortable thoughts attached 
to his new situation, among which the most predominant was 
his feeling that he was, by his confinement, deprived of all 
possibility of assisting the family at St. Leonard’s in their 
greatest need, we return to Jeanie Deans, who had seen him 
depart, without an opportunity of further explanation, in all 
that agony of mind with which the female heart bids adieu to 
the complicated sensations so well described by Coleridge, — 

Hopes, and fears that kindle hope, 

An nndistinguishable throng ; 

And gentle wishes long subdued — 

Subdued and cherish’d long. 

It is not the firmest heart (and Jeanie, under her russet 
rokelay, had one that would not have disgraced Cato’s daughter) 
that can most easily bid adieu to these soft and mingled 
emotions. She wept for a few minutes bitterly, and without 
attempting to refrain from this indulgence of passion. But 
a moment’s recollection induced her to check herself for a 
grief selfish and proper to her own affections, while her father 
and sister were plunged into such deep and irretrievable afflic- 
tion. She drew from her pocket the letter which had been 
that morning flung into her apartment through an open 
window, and the contents of which were as singular as the 
expression was violent and energetic. ‘If she would save a 
human being from the most damning guilt, and all its desperate 
consequences ; if she desired the life and honour of her sister 
to be saved from the bloody fangs of an unjust law ; if she 
desired not to forfeit peace of mind here, and happiness here- 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


145 


after,’ such was the frantic style of the conjuration, ‘ she was 
entreated to give a sure, secret, and solitary meeting to the 
writer. She alone could rescue him,’ so ran the letter, ‘ and 
he only could rescue her.’ He was in such circumstances, the 
billet farther informed her, that an attempt to bring any witness 
of their conference, or even to mention to her father, or any 
other person whatsoever, the letter Avhich requested it, would 
inevitably prevent its taking place, and ensure the destruction 
of her sister. The letter concluded with incoherent but violent 
protestations that in obeying this summons she had nothing to 
fear personally. 

The message delivered to her by Butler from the stranger 
in the Park tallied exactly with the contents of the letter, 
but assigned a later hour and a different place of meeting. 
Apparently the writer of the letter had been compelled to 
let Butler so far into his confidence, for the sake of announ- 
cing this change to Jeanie. She was more than once on the 
point of producing the, billet, in vindication of herself from 
her lover’s half-hinted suspicions. But there is something in 
stooping to justification which the pride of innocence does not 
at all times willingly submit to ; besides that the threats con- 
tained in the letter, in case of her betraying the secret, hung 
heavy on her heart. It is probable, however, that, had they 
remained longer together, she might have taken the resolution 
to submit the whole matter to Butler, and be guided by him as 
to the line of conduct which she should adopt. And when, by 
the sudden interruption of their conference, she lost the oppor- 
tunity of doing so, she felt as if she had been unjust to a friend 
whose advice might have been highly useful, and whose attach- 
ment deserved her full and unreserved confidence. 

To have recourse to her father upon this occasion, she 
considered as highly imprudent. There was no possibility of 
conjecturing in what light the matter might strike old David, 
whose manner of acting and thinking in extraordinary circum- 
stances depended upon feelings and principles peculiar to him- 
self, the operation of which could not be calculated upon even 
by those best acquainted with him. To have requested some 
female friend to have accompanied her to the place of rendez- 
vous would perhaps have been the most eligible expedient ; but 
the threats of the writer, that betraying his secret would prevent 
their meeting, on which her sister’s safety was said to depend, 
from taking place at all, would have deterred her from making 
such a confidence, even had she known a person in whom she 


VII 


10 


146 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


thought it could with safety have been reposed. But she knew 
none such. Their acquaintance with the cottagers in the vicinity 
had been very slight, and limited to trifling acts of good neigh- 
bourhood. Jeanie knew little of them, and what she knew did 
not greatly incline her to trust any of them. They were of the 
order of loquacious good-humoured gossips usually found in their 
situation of life ; and their conversation had at all times few 
charms for a young woman to whom nature and the circum- 
stance of a solitary life had given a depth of thought and force 
of character superior to the frivolous part of her sex whether in 
high or low degree. 

Left alone and separated from all earthly counsel, she had 
recourse to a Friend and Adviser whose ear is open to the cry 
of the poorest and most afilicted of His people. She knelt 
and prayed with fervent sincerity that God would please to 
direct her what course to follow in her arduous and distressing 
situation. It was the belief of the time and sect to which she 
belonged that special answers to prayer, differing little in their 
character from divine inspiration, were, as they expressed it, 
‘ borne in upon their minds ’ in answer to their earnest petitions 
in a crisis of difficulty. Without entering into an abstruse point 
of divinity, one thing is plain; namely, that the person who 
lays open his doubts and distresses in prayer, with feeling and 
sincerity, must necessarily, in the act of doing so, purify his 
mind from the dross of worldly passions and interests, and bring 
it into that state when the resolutions adopted are likely to be 
selected rather from a sense of duty than from any inferior 
motive. Jeanie arose from her devotions with her heart forti- 
fied to endure affliction and encouraged to face difficulties. 

‘ I will meet this unhappy man,’ she said to herself — ‘ un- 
happy he must be, since 1 doubt he has been the cause of poor 
Effie’s misfortune ; but I will meet him, be it for good or ill. 
My mind shall never cast up to me that, for fear of what might 
be said or done to myself, I left that undone that might even 
yet be the rescue of her.’ 

With a mind greatly composed since the adoption of this 
resolution, she went to attend her father. The old man, firm in 
the principles of his youth, did not, in outw^ard appearance at 
least, permit a thought of his family distress to interfere with 
the stoical reserve of his countenance and manners. He even 
chid his daughter for having neglected, in the distress of the 
morning, some trifling domestic duties which fell under her 
department, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


147 


* Why, what meaneth this, Jeanie ? ’ said the old man. ‘ The 
brown four-year-auld’s milk is not seiled yet, nor the bowies put 
up on the bink. If ye neglect your warldly duties in the day 
of affliction, what confidence have I that ye mind the greater 
matters that concern salvation ? God knows, our bowies, and 
our pipkins, and our draps o’ milk, and our bits o’ bread are 
nearer and dearer to us than the bread of life.’ 

Jeanie, not unpleased to hear her father’s thoughts thus ex- 
pand themselves beyond the sphere of his immediate distress, 
obeyed him, and proceeded to put her household matters in 
order ; while old David moved from place to place about his 
ordinary employments, scarce showing, unless by a nervous im- 
patience at remaining long stationary, an occasional convulsive 
sigh, or twinkle of the eyelid, that he v/as labouring under the 
yoke of such bitter affliction. 

The hour of noon came on, and the father and child sat down 
to their homely repast. In his petition for a blessing on the 
meal, the poor old man added to his supplication a prayer that 
the bread eaten in sadness of heart, and the bitter waters of 
Merah, might be made as nourishing as those which had been 
poured forth from a full cup and a plentiful basket and store ; 
and having concluded his benediction, and resumed the bonnet 
which he had laid ‘reverently aside,’ he proceeded to exhort his 
daughter to eat, not by example indeed, but at least by precept. 

‘The man after God’s own heart,’ he said, ‘washed and 
anointed himself, and did eat bread, in order to express his sub- 
mission under a dispensation of suffering, and it did not become 
a Christian man or woman so to cling to creature-comforts of 
wife or bairns (here the words became too great, as it were, for 
his utterance) as to forget the first duty — submission to the 
Divine will.’ 

To add force to his precept, he took a morsel on his plate, 
but nature proved too strong even for the powerLil feelings 
with which he endeavoured to bridle it. Ashamed of his weak- 
ness, he started up and ra,n out of the house, with haste very 
unlike the deliberation of his usual movements. In less than 
five minutes he returned, having successfully struggled to 
recover his ordinary composure of mind and countenance, and 
affected to colour over his late retreat by muttering that he 
thought he heard the ‘ young staig loose in the byre.’ 

He did not again trust himself with the subject of his former 
conversation, and his daughter was glad to see that he seemed 
to avoid further discourse on that agitating topic. The hours 


148 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


glided on, as on they must and do pass, whether winged with 
joy or laden with affliction. The sun set beyond the dusky 
eminence of the Castle and the screen of western hills, and the 
close of evening summoned David Deans and his daughter to 
the family duty of the evening. It came bitterly upon J eanie’s 
recollection how often, when the hour of worship approached, 
she used to watch the lengthening shadows, and look out from 
the door of the house, to see if she could spy her sister’s return 
homeward. Alas ! this idle and thoughtless waste of time, to 
what evils had it not finally led ? And was she altogether guilt- 
less, who, noticing Effie’s turn to idle and light society, had not 
called in her father’s authority to restrain her 1 ‘ But I acted 

for the best,’ she again reflected, ‘ and who could have expected 
such a growth of evil from one grain of human leaven in a dis- 
position so kind, and candid, and generous ? ’ 

As they sate down to the ‘ exercise,’ as it is called, a chair 
happened accidentally to stand in the place which Effie usually 
occupied. David Deans saw his daughter’s eyes swim in tears 
as they were directed towards this object, and pushed it aside 
with a gesture of some impatience, as if desirous to destroy every 
memorial of earthly interest when about to address the Deity. 
The portion of Scripture was read, the psalm was sung, the 
prayer was made ; and it was remarkable that, in discharging 
these duties, the old man avoided all passages and expressions, 
of which Scripture affords so many, that might be considered 
as applicable to his own domestic misfortune. In doing so it 
was perhaps his intention to spare the feelings of his daughter, 
as well as to maintain, in outward show at least, that stoical 
appearance of patient endurance of all the evil which earth 
could bring, which was, in his opinion, essential to the character 
of one who rated all earthly things at their own just estimate 
of nothingness. When he had finished the duty of the evening, 
he came up to his daughter, wished her good-night, and, having 
done so, continued to hold her by the hands for half a minute ; 
then drawing her towards him, kissed her forehead, and ejacu- 
lated, ‘ The God of Israel bless you, even with the blessings of 
the promise, my dear bairn ! ’ 

It was not either in the nature or habits of David Deans to 
seem a fond father ; nor was he often observed to experience, or 
at least to evince, that fulness of the heart which seeks to 
expand itself in tender expressions or caresses even to those 
who were dearest to him. On the contrary, he used to censure 
this as a degree of weakness in several of his neighbours, and 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


149 


particularly in poor widow Butler. It followed, however, from 
the rarity of such emotions in this self-denied and reserved 
man, that his children attached to occasional marks of his 
affection and approbation a degree of high interest and solem- 
nity, well considering them as evidences of feelings which were 
only expressed when they became too intense for suppression 
or concealment. 

With deep emotion, therefore, did he bestow, and his 
daughter receive, this benediction and paternal caress. ‘ And 
you, my dear father,’ exclaimed Jeanie, when the door had 
closed upon the venerable old man, ‘ may you have purchased 
and promised blessings multiplied upon you — upon you^ who 
walk in this world as though ye were not of the world, and 
hold all that it can give or take away but as the midges that 
the sun-blink brings out, and the evening wind sweeps away ! ’ 

She now made preparation for her night-walk Her father 
slept in another part of the dwelling, and, regular in all his 
habits, seldom or never left his apartment when he had betaken 
himself to it for the evening. It was therefore easy for her to 
leave the house unobserved, so soon as the time approached 
at which she was to keep her appointment. But the step she 
was about to take had difficulties and terrors in her own eyes, 
though she had no reason to apprehend her father’s interference. 
Her life had been spent in the quiet, uniform, and regular 
seclusion of their peaceful and monotonous household. The 
very hour which some damsels of the present day, as well of 
her own as of higher degree, would consider as the natural 
period of commencing an evening of pleasure, brought, in her 
opinion, awe and solemnity in it ; and the resolution she had 
taken had a strange, daring, and adventurous character, to 
which she could hardly reconcile herself when the moment 
approached for putting it into execution. Her hands trembled 
as she snooded her fair hair beneath the ribband, then the 
only ornament or cover which young unmarried women wore 
on their head, and as she adjusted the scarlet tartan screen or 
muffler made of plaid, which the Scottish women wore, much 
in the fashion of the black silk veils still a part of female dress 
in the Netherlands. A sense of impropriety as well as of 
danger pressed upon her, as she lifted the latch of her paternal 
mansion to leave it on so wild an expedition, and at so late an 
hour, unprotected, and without the knowledge of her natural 
guardian. 

When she found herself abroad and in the open fields, addi- 


150 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


tional subjects of apprehension crowded upon her. The dim 
cliffs and scattered rocks, interspersed with green sward, through 
Avhich she had to pass to the place of appointment, as they 
glimmered before her in a clear autumn night, recalled to 
her memory many a deed of violence, which, accord mg to 
tradition, had been done and suffered among them. In earlier 
days they had been the haunt of robbers and assassins, the 
memory of whose crimes is preserved in the various edicts 
which the council of the city, and even the parliament of Scot- 
land, had passed for dispersing their bands, and ensuring safety 
to the lieges, so near the precincts of the city. The names of 
these criminals, and of their atrocities, were still remembered 
in traditions of the scattered cottages and the neighbouring 
suburb. In latter times, as we have already noticed, the 
sequestered and broken character of the ground rendered it 
a fit theatre for duels and rencontres among the fiery youth of 
the period. Two or three of these incidents, all sanguinary, 
and one of them fatal in its termination, had happened since 
Deans came to live at St. Leonard’s. His daughter’s recollec- 
tions, therefore, were of blood and horror as she pursued the 
small scarce -tracked solitary path, every step of which con- 
veyed her to a greater distance from help, and deeper into the 
ominous seclusion of these unhallowed precincts. 

As the moon began to peer forth on the scene with a 
doubtful, flitting, and solemn light, Jeanie’s apprehensions 
took another turn, too peculiar to her rank and country to 
remain unnoticed. But to trace its origin will require another 
chapter. 


CHAPTER XV 


The spirit I have seen 

May be the devil. And the devil has power 
To assume a pleasing shape. 

Hamlet. 

Witchcraft and demonology, as we have had already occasion 
to remark, were at this period believed in by almost all ranks, 
but more especially among the stricter classes of Presbyterians, 
whose government, when their party were at the head of the 
state, had been much sullied by their eagerness to inquire 
into and persecute these imaginary crimes. Now, in this 
point of view, also, St. Leonard’s Crags and the adjacent 
chase were a dreaded and ill-reputed district. Not only had 
witches held their meetings there, but even of very late years 
the enthusiast, or impostor, mentioned in the Pandeemonium of 
Richard Bovet, Gentleman,* had, among the recesses of these 
romantic cliffs, found his way into the hidden retreats where 
the fairies revel in the bowels of the earth. 

With all these legends Jeanie Deans was too well acquainted 
to escape that strong impression which they usually make on 
the imagination. Indeed, relations of this ghostly kind had 
been familiar to her from her infancy, for they were the only 
relief which her father’s conversation afforded from contro- 
versial argument, or the gloomy history of the strivings and 
testimonies, escapes, captures, tortures, and executions of those 
martyrs of the Covenant with whom it was his chiefest boast 
to say he had been acquainted. In the recesses of mountains, 
in caverns, and in morasses, to which these persecuted en- 
thusiasts were so ruthlessly pursued, they conceived they had 
often to contend with the visible assaults of the Enemy of 
mankind, as in the cities and in the cultivated fields they 
were exposed to those of the tyrannical government and their 
soldiery. Such were the terrors which made one of their 

* See The Fairy Boy of Leith. Note 19. 


152 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


gifted seers exclaim, when his companion returned to him, 
after having left him alone in a haunted cavern in Sorn in 
Galloway, ‘ It is hard living in this world — incarnate devils 
above the earth, and devils under the earth ! Satan has been 
here since ye went away, but I have dismissed him by resist- 
ance ; we will be no more troubled with him this night.’ David 
Deans believed this, and many other such ghostly encounters 
and victories, on the faith of the ansars, or auxiliaries of the 
banished prophets. This event was beyond David’s remem- 
brance. But he used to tell with great awe, yet not without a 
feeling of proud superiority to his auditors, how he himself had 
been present at a field-meeting at Crochmade, when the duty 
of the day was interrupted by the apparition of a tall black 
man, who, in the act of crossing a ford to join the congregation, 
lost ground, and was carried down apparently by the force of the 
stream. All were instantly at work to assist him, but with so 
little success that ten or twelve stout men, who had hold of 
the rope which they had cast in to his aid, were rather in 
danger to be dragged into the stream, and lose their own lives, 
than likely to save that of the supposed perishing man. ‘ But 
famous John Semple of Carspharn,’ David Deans used to say 
Avith exultation, ‘ saAv the whaup in the rape. “ Quit the rope,” 
he cried to us — for I that was but a callant had a haud o’ the 
rape mysell — “ it is the Great Enemy ! he Avill burn, but not 
drown; his design is to disturb the good Avark, by raising 
Avonder and confusion in your minds, to put off from your 
spirits all that ye hae heard and felt.” Sae Ave let go the rape,’ 
said David, ‘and he Avent adoAvn the water screeching and 
bullering like a Bull of Bashan, as he’s ca’d in Scripture.’ * 
Trained in these and similar legends, it Avas no AA^onder that 
Jeanie began to feel an ill-defined apprehension, not merely of 
the phantoms Avhich might beset her Avay, but of the quality, 
nature, and purpose of the being Avho had thus appointed her a 
meeting at a place and hour of horror, and at a time Avhen her 
mind must be necessarily full of those tempting and ensnaring 
thoughts of grief and despair AA'hich Avere supposed to lay 
sufferers particularly open to the temptations of the Evil One. 
If such an idea had crossed even Butler’s Avell-informed mind, it 
was calculated to make a much stronger impression upon hers. 
Yet firmly believing the possibility of an encounter so terrible to 
flesh and blood, J eanie, Avith a degree of resolution of Avhich Ave 
cannot sufficiently estimate the merit, because the incredulity 

* See Intercourse of the Covenanters with the Invisible AVorld. Note 20. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


153 


of the age has rendered us strangers to the nature and extent 
of her feelings, persevered in her determination not to omit an 
opportunity of doing something towards saving her sister, 
although, in the attempt to avail herself of it, she might be 
exposed to dangers so dreadful to her imagination. So, like 
Christiana in the PilgrirrCs Progress, when traversing with a 
timid yet resolved step the terrors of the Valley of the Shadow 
of Death, she glided on by rock and stone, ‘ now in glimmer 
and now in gloom,’ as her path lay through moonlight or 
shadow, and endeavoured to overpower the suggestions of fear, 
sometimes by fixing her mind upon the distressed condition of 
her sister, and the duty she lay under to afford her aid, should 
that be in her power, and more frequently by recurring in 
mental prayer to the protection of that Being to whom night is 
as noonday. 

Thus drowning at one time her fears by fixing her mind on 
a subject of overpowering interest, and arguing them down at 
others by referring, herself to the protection of the Deity, she 
at length approached the place assigned for this mysterious 
conference. 

It was situated in the depth of the valley behind Salisbury 
Crags, which has for a background the north-western shoulder 
of the mountain called Arthur’s Seat, on whose descent still 
remain the ruins of what was once a chapel, or hermitage, 
dedicated to St. Anthony the Eremite. A better site for 
such a building could hardly have been selected ; for the 
chapel, situated among the rude and pathless cliffs, lies in a 
desert, even in the immediate vicinity of a rich, populous, and 
tumultuous capital; and the hum of the city might mingle 
with the orisons of the recluses, conveying as little of w^orldly 
interest as if it had been the roar of the distant ocean. 
Beneath the steep ascent on which these ruins are still visible, 
was, and perhaps is still, pointed out the place where the 
wretch Nicol Muschat, who has been already mentioned in 
these pages, had closed a long scene of cruelty towards his 
unfortunate wife by murdering her, with circumstances of un- 
common barbarity. The execration in which the man’s crime 
w^as held extended itself to the place where it was perpetrated, 
which was marked by a small cairn, or heap of stones, com- 
posed of those which each chance passenger had thrown there 
in testimony of abhorrence, and on the principle, it would seem, 
of the ancient British malediction, ‘ May you have a cairn for 
your burial-place ! ’ 


154 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


As our heroine approached this ominous and unhallowed 
spot, she paused and looked to the moon, now rising broad on 
the north-west, and shedding a more distinct light than it had 
afforded during her walk thither. Eyeing the planet for a 
moment, she then slowly and fearfully turned her head towards 
the cairn, from which it was at first averted. She was at first 
disappointed. Nothing was visible beside the little pile of 
stones, which shone grey in the moonlight. A multitude of 
confused suggestions rushed on her mind. Had her corre- 
spondent deceived her, and broken his appointment ? was he too 
tardy at the appointment he had made ? or had some strange 
turn of fate prevented him from appearing as he proposed ? 
or, if he were an unearthly being, as her secret apprehensions 
suggested, was it his object merely to delude her with false 
hopes, and put her to unnecessary toil and terror, according to 
the nature, as she had heard, of those wandering demons ? or 
did he purpose to blast her with the sudden horrors of his 
presence when she had come close to the place of rendezvous ? 
These anxious reflections did not prevent her approaching to 
the cairn with a pace that, though slow, was determined. 

When she was within two yards of the heap of stones, a 
figure rose suddenly up from behind it, and Jeanie scarce 
forbore to scream aloud at what seemed the realisation of the 
most frightful of her anticipations. She constrained herself to 
silence, however, and, making a dead pause, suffered the figure 
to open the conversation, which he did by asking, in a voice 
which agitation rendered tremulous and hollow, ‘ Are you the 
sister of that ill-fated young woman 1 ’ 

‘ I am ; I am the sister of Effie Deans ! ’ exclaimed Jeanie. 
‘ And as ever you hope God will hear you at your need, tell 
me, if you can tell, what can be done to save her ! ’ 

‘ I do not hope God will hear me at my need,’ was the singular 
answer. ‘ I do not deserve — I do not expect He will.’ This 
desperate language he uttered in a tone calmer than that with 
which he had at &st spoken, probably because the shock of first 
addressing her was what he felt most difficult to overcome. 

J eanie remained mute with horror to hear language expressed 
so utterly foreign to all which she had ever been acquainted 
with, that it sounded in her ears rather like that of a fiend 
than of a human being. 

The stranger pursued his address to her without seeming to 
notice her surprise. ‘ You see before you a wretch predestined 
to evil here and hereafter.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


155 


‘ For the sake of Heaven, that hears and sees us,’ said Jeanie, 
‘ dinna speak in this desperate fashion. The Gospel is sent to 
the chief of sinners — to the most miserable among the miserable.’ 

‘Then should I have my ov/n share therein,’ said the 
stranger, ‘ if you call it sinful to have been the destruction of 
the mother that bore me, of the friend that loved me, of the 
Avoman that trusted me, of the innocent child that was born to me. 
If to have done all this is to be a sinner, and to survive it is to 
be miserable, then am I most guilty and most miserable indeed.’ 

‘ Then you are the Avicked cause of my sister’s ruin ? ’ said 
Jeanie, Avith a natural touch of indignation expressed in her 
tone of voice. 

‘Curse me for it if you Avill,’ said the stranger; ‘I haA^e 
well deserved it at your hand.’ 

‘It is fitter for me,’ said Jeanie, ‘to pray to God to forgive 
you.’ 

‘ Do as you will, hoAv you will, or Avhat you will,’ he replied, 
with vehemence ; ‘only promise to obey my directions, and save 
your sister’s life.’ 

‘ I must first knoAv,’ said Jeanie, ‘ the means you Avould have 
me use in her behalf.’ 

‘ No ! you must first swear — solemnly swear — that you will 
employ them, when I make them known to, you.’ 

‘ Surely it is needless to sAvear that I will do all that is laAv- 
ful to a Christian to save the life of my sister ? ’ 

‘ I will have no reservation !’ thundered the stranger. ‘LaAv- 
ful or unlawful, Christian or heathen, you shall SAvear to do my 
best and act by my counsel, or — you little knoAv whose wrath 
you provoke !’ 

‘ I will think on what you have said,’ said Jeanie, who began 
to get much alarmed at the frantic vehemence of his manner, 
and disputed in her own mind whether she spoke to a maniac 
or an apostate spirit incarnate — ‘ I will think on what you say, 
and let you ken to-morrow.’ 

‘ To-morroAV ! ’ exclaimed the man, Avith a laugh of scorn. 
‘And where Avill I be to-morrow'? or Avhere will you be to- 
night, unless you SAvear to walk by my counsel 1 There was 
one accursed deed done at this spot before now; and there 
shall be another to match it unless you yield up to my guid- 
ance body and soul.’ 

As he spoke, he offered a pistol at the unfortunate young 
woman. She neither fled nor fainted, but sunk on her knees 
and asked him to spare her life. 


156 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ Is that all you have to say ? ’ said the unmoved ruffian. 

‘Do not dip your hands in the blood of a defenceless 
creature that has trusted to you,’ said Jeanie, still on her 
knees. 

‘ Is that all you can say for your life ? Have you no pro- 
mise to give ? Will you destroy your sister, and compel me 
to shed more blood ? ’ 

‘I can promise nothing,’ said Jeanie, ‘which is unlawful for 
a Christian.’ 

He cocked the weapon and held it towards her. 

‘ May God forgive you ! ’ she said, pressing her hands 
forcibly against her eyes. 

‘ D n ! ’ muttered the man ; and, turning aside from her, 

he uncocked the pistol and replaced it in his pocket. ‘ I am 
a villain,’ he said, ‘ steeped in guilt and wretchedness, but not 
wicked enough to do you any harm ! I only wished to terrify 
you into my measures. She hears me not — she is gone ! 
Great God ! what a wretch am I become ! ’ 

As he spoke, she recovered herself from an agony which 
partook of the bitterness of death ; and in a minute or two, 
through the strong exertion of her natural sense and courage, 
collected herself sufficiently to understand he intended her no 
personal injury. 

‘ No ! ’ he repeated ; ‘ I would not add to the murder of 
your sister, and of her child, that of any one belonging to her ! 
Mad, frantic, as I am, and unrestrained by either fear or mercy, 
given up to the possession of an evil being, and forsaken by 
all that is good, I would not hurt you, were the world offered 
me for a bribe ! But, for the sake of all that is dear to you, 
swear you will follow my counsel. Take this w'eapon, shoot 
me through the head, and with your own hand revenge your 
sister’s wrong, only follow the course — the only course, by 
which her life can be saved.’ 

‘ Alas ! is she innocent or guilty 1 ’ 

‘She is guiltless — guiltless of everything but of having 
trusted a villain ! Yet, had it not been for those that were 
worse than I am — yes, worse than I am, though I am bad 
indeed — this misery had not befallen.’ 

‘And my sister’s child — does it live?’ said Jeanie. 

‘No; it was murdered — the new-born infant was barbar- 
ously murdered,’ he uttered in a low, yet stern and sustained 
voice ; ‘ but,’ he added hastily, ‘ not by her knowledge or con- 
sent.’ 



VopyThjht IS! ‘3 htj A. <t' C. lilach 


JRAXIE DEANS AND ROBERTSON AT MUSCHAT S CAIRN 








THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


157 


‘Then why cannot the guilty be brought to justice, and 
the innocent freed ? ’ 

‘ Torment me not with questions which can serve no pur- 
pose,’ he sternly replied. ‘ The deed was done by those who are 
far enough from pursuit, and safe enough from discovery ! No 
one can save Effie but yourself.’ 

‘Woe’s me! how is it in my power?’ asked Jeanie, in 
despondency. 

‘ Hearken to me 1 You have sense — you can apprehend my 
meaning — I will trust you. Your sister is innocent of the 
crime charged against her ’ 

‘ Thank God for that 1 ’ said Jeanie. 

‘ Be still and hearken 1 The person who assisted her in her 
illness murdered the child; but it was without the mother’s 
knowledge or consent. She is therefore guiltless — as guiltless 
as the unhappy innocent that but gasped a few minutes in this 
unhappy world ; the better was its hap to be so soon at rest. 
She is innocent as that infant, and yet she must die ; it is im- 
possible to clear her of the law ! ’ 

‘ Cannot the wretches be discovered and given up to punish- 
ment ? ’ said Jeanie. 

‘ Do you think you will persuade those who are hardened 
in guilt to die to save another ? Is that the reed you would 
lean to ? ’ 

‘ But you said there was a remedy,’ again gasped out the 
terrified young woman. 

‘ There is,’ answered the stranger, ‘ and it is in your own 
hands. The blow which the law aims cannot be broken by 
directly encountering it, but it may be turned aside. You saw 
your sister during the period preceding the birth of her child ; 
what is so natural as that she should have mentioned her con- 
dition to you 1 The doing so would, as their cant goes, take 
the case from under the statute, for it removes the quality of 
concealment. I know their jargon, and have had sad cause to 
know it ; and the quality of concealment is essential to this 
statutory offence. Nothing is so natural as that Effie should 
have mentioned her condition to you ; think — reflect — I am 
positive that she did.’ 

‘Woe’s me!’ said Jeanie, ‘she never spoke to me on the 
subject, but grat sorely when I spoke to her about her altered 
looks and the change on her spirits.’ 

‘You asked her questions on the subject?’ he said, eagerly. 
‘ You mmt remember her answer was a confession that she had 


158 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


been ruined by a villain — yes, lay a strong emphasis on that — 
a cruel false villain call it — any other name is unnecessary ; 
and that she bore under her bosom the consequences of his 
guilt and her folly; and that he had assured her he would 
provide safely for her approaching illness. Well he kept his 
word ! ’ These last words he spoke as it were to himself, and 
with a violent gesture of self-accusation, and then calmly pro- 
ceeded, ‘You will remember all this? That is all that is 
necessary to be said.' 

‘ But I cannot remember,’ answered Jeanie, with simplicity, 
‘ that which Effie never told me.’ 

‘Are you so dull — so very dull of apprehension?’ he ex- 
claimed, suddenly grasping her arm, and holding it firm in 
his hand. ‘ I tell you (speaking between his teeth, and under 
his breath, but with great energy), you mmt remember that 
she told you all this, whether she ever said a syllable of it 
or no. You must repeat this tale, in which there is no false- 
hood, except in so far as it was not told to you, before these 
Justices — Justiciary — whatever they call their bloodthirsty 
court, and save your sister from being murdered, and them 
from becoming murderers. Do not hesitate ; I pledge life and 
salvation, that in saying what I have said, you will only speak 
the simple truth.’ 

‘But,’ replied Jeanie, whose judgment was too accurate not 
to see the sophistry of this argument, ‘ I shall be man-sworn in 
the very thing in which my testimony is wanted, for it is the 
concealment for which poor Effie is blamed, and you would 
make me tell a falsehood anent it.’ 

‘ I see,’ he said, ‘ my first suspicions of you were right, and 
that you will let your sister, innocent, fair, and guiltless, except 
in trusting a villain, die the death of a murderess, rather than 
bestow the breath of your mouth and the sound of your voice 
to save her.’ 

‘ I wad ware the best blood in my body to keep her skaith- 
less,’ said Jeanie, weeping in bitter agony ; ‘but I canna change 
right into wrang, or make that true which is false.’ 

‘ Foolish, hard-hearted girl,’ said the stranger, ‘ are you afraid 
of what they may do to you ? I tell you, even the retainers of 
the law, who course life as greyhounds do hares, will rejoice at 
the escape of a creature so young — so beautiful ; that they will 
not suspect your tale ; that, if they did suspect it, they would 
consider you as deserving, not only of forgiveness, but of praise 
for your natural affection.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


159 


‘It is not man I fear,’ said Jeanie, looking upAvard; ‘the 
God, whose name I must call on to witness the truth of what I 
say, He will know the falsehood.’ 

‘ And He will know the motive,’ said the stranger, eagerly ; 
‘ He will know that you are doing this, not for lucre of 
gain, but to save the life of the innocent, and prevent the com- 
mission of a worse crime than that which the law seeks to 
avenge.’ 

‘He has given us a law,’ said Jeanie, ‘for the lamp of our 
path ; if we stray from it we err against knowledge. I may not 
do evil, even that good may come out of it. But you — you 
that ken all this to be true, which I must take on your word — 
you that, if I understood what you said e’en now, promised her 
shelter and protection in her travail, why do not you step for- 
ward and bear leal and soothfast evidence in her behalf, as ye 
may with a clear conscience % ’ 

‘ To whom do you talk of a clear conscience, woman % ’ said 
he, Avith a sudden fierceness which renewed her terrors — ‘ to me ? 
I have not known one for many a year. Bear witness in her 
behalf % — a proper witness, that, even to speak these few words 
to a woman of so little consequence as yourself, must choose 
such an hour and such a place as this. When you see owls and 
bats fly abroad, like larks, in the sunshine, you may expect to 
see such as I am in the assemblies of men. Hush ! listen to 
that.’ 

A voice was heard to sing one of those wild and monotonous 
strains so common in Scotland, and to which the natives of that 
country chant their old ballads. The sound ceased, then came 
nearer and was renewed ; the stranger listened attentively, still 
holding Jeanie by the arm (as she stood by him in motionless 
terror), as if to prevent her interrupting the strain by speaking 
or stirring. When the sounds were renewed, the words "were 
distinctly audible : 

‘ When the glede’s in the blue cloud, 

The lavrock lies still ; 

When the hound’s in the gi*een-wood, 

The hind keeps the hill. ’ 

The person who sung kept a strained and powerful voice at its 
highest pitch, so that it could be heard at a very considerable 
distance. As the song ceased, they might hear a stifled sound, 
as of steps and whispers of persons approaching them. The 
song was again raised, but the tune was changed : 


160 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ 0 sleep ye sound, Sir James, she said. 

When ye suld rise and ride ? 

There’s twenty men, wi’ bow and blade. 

Are seeking where ye hide/ 

‘ I dare stay no longer,’ said the stranger. ‘ Return home, or 
remain till they come up, you have nothing to fear ; but 
do not tell you saw me : your sister’s fate is in your hands.’ 
So saying, he turned from her, and with a swift, yet cautiously 
noiseless step plunged into the darkness on the side most 
remote from the sounds which they heard approaching, and 
was soon lost to her sight. Jeanie remained by the cairn 
terrified beyond expression, and uncertain whether she ought 
to fly homeward with all the speed she could exert, or wait the 
approach of those who were advancing towards her. This un- 
certainty detained her so long that she now distinctly saw two 
or three figures already so near to her that a precipitate flight 
would have been equally fruitless and impolitic. 


CHAPTER XVI 


She speaks things in doubt, 

That carry but half sense : her speech is nothing, 

Yet tlie un shaped use of it doth move 
The hearers to collection ; they aim at it, 

And botch the words up to fit their own thoughts. 

Hamlet, 

Like the digressive poet Ariosto, I find myself under the 
necessity of connecting the branches of my story, by taking 
up the adventures of another of the characters, and bringing 
them down to the point at which we have left those of Jeanie 
Deans. It is not, perhaps, the most artificial way of telling 
a story, but it has the advantage of sparing the necessity of 
resuming what a knitter (if stocking -looms have left such a 
person in the land) might call our ‘ dropped stitches ’ ; a labour 
in which the author generally toils much, without getting credit 
for his pains. 

‘ I could risk a sma’ wad,’ said the clerk to the magistrate, 
‘that this rascal Ratcliffe, if he were ensured of his neck’s 
safety, could do more than ony ten of our police -people and 
constables to help us to get out of this scrape of Porteous’s. 
He is weel acquent wi’ a’ the smugglers, thieves, and banditti 
about Edinburgh ; and, indeed, he may be called the father of 
a’ the misdoers in Scotland, for he has passed amang them for 
these twenty years by the name of Daddie Rat.’ 

‘A bonny sort of a scoundrel,’ replied the magistrate, ‘to 
expect a place under the city ! ’ 

‘ Begging your honour’s pardon,’ said the city’s procurator- 
fiscal, upon whom the duties of superintendent of police de- 
volved, ‘Mr. Fairscrieve is perfectly in the right. It is just 
sic as Ratcliffe that the town needs in my department ; an’ if 
sae be that he’s disposed to turn his knowledge to the city 
service, ye’ll no find a better man. Ye’ll get nae saints to be 
searchers for uncustomed goods, or for thieves and sic-like; 


VII 


II 


162 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


and your decent sort of men, religious professors and broken 
tradesmen, that are put into the like o’ sic trust, can do nae 
glide ava. They are feared for this, and they are scrupulous 
about that, and they are na free to tell a lie, though* it may be 
for the benefit of the city ; and they dinna like to be out at 
irregular hours, and in a dark cauld night, and they like a clout 
ower the croun far waur ; and sae between the fear o’ God, and 
the fear o’ man, and the fear o’ getting a sair throat, or sair 
banes, there’s a dozen o’ our city-folk, baith waiters, and officers, 
and constables, that can find out naething but a wee bit scul- 
duddery for the benefit of the kirk-treasurer. Jock Porteous, 
that’s stiff and stark, puir fallow, was worth a dozen o’ them ; 
for he never had ony fears, or scruples, or doubts, or conscience, 
about ony thing your honours bade him.’ 

‘ He was a gude servant o’ the town,’ said the bailie, ‘ though 
he was an ower free-living man. But if you really think this 
rascal Ratcliffe could do us ony service in discovering these 
malefactors, I would ensure him life, reward, and promotion. 
It’s an awsome thing this mischance for the city, Mr. Fair- 
scrieve. It will be very ill taen wi’ abune stairs. Queen Caroline, 
God bless her ! is a woman — at least I judge sae, and it’s nae 
treason to speak my mind sae far — and ye maybe ken as weel 
as I do, for ye hae a housekeeper, though ye arena a married 
man, that women are wilfu’, and downa bide a slight. Aiid it 
will sound ill in her ears that sic a confused mistake suld come 
to pass, and naebody sae muckle as to be put into the tolbooth 
about it.’ 

‘ If ye thought that, sir,’ said the procurator-fiscal, ‘ we could 
easily clap into the prison a few blackguards upon suspicion. It 
will have a gude active look, and I hae aye plenty on my list, 
that wadna be a hair the waur of a week or twa’s imprison- 
ment; and if ye thought it no strictly just, ye could be just 
the easier wi’ them the neist time they did ony thing to deserve 
it : they arena the sort to be lang o’ gieing ye an opportunity 
to clear scores wi’ them on that account.’ 

‘ I doubt that will hardly do in this case, Mr. Sharpitlaw,’ 
returned the town -clerk; ‘they’ll run their letters,* and be 
adrift again, before ye ken where ye are.’ 

‘I will speak to the Lord Provost,’ said the magistrate, 
‘ about Ratcliffe’s business. Mr. Sharpitlaw, you will go with 
me and receive instructions. Something may be made too out 

* A Scottish form of procedure, answering, in some respects, to the English Habeas 
Corpus. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


163 


of this story of Butler’s and his unknown gentleman. I know 
no business any man has to swagger about in the King’s Park, 
and call himself the devil, to the terror of honest folks, who 
dinna care to hear mair about the devil than is said from the 
pulpit on the Sabbath. I cannot think the preacher himsell 
wad be heading the mob, though the time has been they hae 
been as forward in a bruilzie as their neighbours.’ 

‘ But these times are lang bye,’ said Mr. Sharpitlaw. ‘ In my 
father’s time there was mair search for silenced ministers about 
the Bow-head and the Covenant Close, and all the tents of Kedar, 
as they ca’d the dwellings o’ the godly in those days, than there’s 
now for thieves and vagabonds in the Laigh Calton and the 
back o’ the Canongate. But that time’s weel bye, an if bide. 
And if the bailie will get me directions and authority from the 
provost. I’ll speak wi’ Daddie Rat mysell ; for I’m thinking I’ll 
make mair out o’ him than ye’ll do.’ 

Mr. Sharpitlaw, being necessarily a man of high trust, was 
accordingly empowered, in the course of the day, to make such 
arrangements as might seem in the emergency most advan- 
tageous for the Good Town. He went to the jail accordingly, 
and saw Ratcliffe in private. 

The relative positions of a police-officer and a professed thief 
bear a different complexion according to circumstances. The 
most obvious simile of a hawk pouncing upon his prey is often 
least applicable. Sometimes^ the guardian of j justice has the air 
of a cat watching a mouse, and, while he suspends his purpose 
of springing upon the pilferer, takes care so to calculate his 
motions that he shall not get beyond his power. Sometimes, 
more passive still, he uses the art of fascination ascribed to the 
rattlesnake, and contents himself with glaring on the victim 
through all ^is devious flutterings ; certain that his terror, 
confusion, and disorder of ideas will bring him into his 
jaws at last. The interview between Ratcliffe and Sharpitlaw 
had an aspect different from all these. They sate for five 
minutes silent, on opposite sides of a small table, and looked 
fixedly at each other, with a sharp, knowing, and alert cast 
of countenance, not unmingled with an inclination to laugh, 
and resembled more than anything else two dogs who, pre- 
paring for a game at romps, are seen to couch down and 
remain in that posture for a little time, watching each other’s 
movements, and waiting which shall begin the game. 

‘ So, Mr. Ratcliffe,’ said the officer, conceiving it suited his 
dignity to speak first, ‘ you give up business, I find 1 ’ 


164 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ Yes, sir,’ replied Ratcliffe ; ‘ I shall be on that lay nae mair ; 
and I think that will save your folk some trouble, Mr. Sharpit- 
law ? ’ 

‘Which Jock Dalgieish* (then finisher of the law in the 
Scottish metropolis) wad save them as easily,’ returned the 
procurator-fiscal. 

‘ Ay ; if I waited in the tolbooth here to have him fit my 
cravat ; but that’s an idle way o’ speaking, Mr. Sharpitlaw.’ 

‘ Why, I suppose you know yon are under sentence of death, 
Mr. Ratcliffe ? ’ replied Mr. Sharpitlaw. 

‘Ay, so are a’, as that worthy minister said in the Tolbooth 
Kirk th^ day Robertson wan off ; but naebody kens when it will 
be executed. Gude faith, he had better reason to say sae than 
he dreamed of, before the play was played out that morning ! ’ 

‘ This Robertson,’ said Sharpitlaw, in a lower and something 
like a confidential tone, ‘ d’j^e ken, Rat — that is, can ye gie us 
ony inkling where he is to be heard tell o’ ? ’ 

‘ Troth, Mr. Sharpitlaw, I’ll be frank Avi’ ye : Robertson is 
rather a cut abune me. A wild deevil he Avas, and mony a daft 
prank he played ; but, except the collector’s job that Wilson led 
him into, and some tuilzies about run goods Avi’ the gaugers 
and the Avaiters, he never did ony thing that came near our 
line o’ business.’ 

‘ Umph ! that’s singular, considering the company he kept.’ 

‘Fact, upon my honour and credit,’ said Ratcliffe, gravely. 

‘ He keepit out o’ our little bits of affairs, and that’s mair than 
Wilson did ; I hae dune business Avi’ AVilson afore now. But 
the lad Avill come on in time, there’s nae fear o’ him ; naebody 
Avill live the life he has led but what he’ll come to sooner or 
later.’ 

‘ Who or Avhat is he, Ratcliffe ? you knoAV, I suppose ? ’ said 
SharpitlaAv. 

‘He’s better born, I judge, than he cares to let on; he’s 
been a soldier, and he has been a play-actor, and I Avatna Avhat 
he has been or hasna been, for as young as he is, sae that it 
had daffing and nonsense about it.’ 

‘ Pretty pranks he has played in his time, I suppose ? ’ 

‘ Ye may say that,’ said Ratcliffe, Avith a sardonic smile ; 

‘ and (touching his nose) a deevil amang the lasses.’ 

‘Like enough,’ said Sharpitlaw. ‘Weel, Ratcliffe, I’ll no 
stand niffering Avi’ ye : ye ken the Avay that favour’s gotten in 
my office ; ye maun be usefu’.’ 

* See Note 21. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


1,65 


‘ Certainly, sir, to the best of my power : naething for nae- 
thing — I ken the rule of the office,’ said the ex-depredator. 

‘ Now the principal thing in hand e’en now,’ said the official 
person, ‘ is this job of Porteous’s. An ye can gie us a lift — 
why, the inner turnkey’s office to begin wi’, and the captainship 
in time ; ye understand my meaning ? ’ 

‘ Ay, troth do I, sir ; a wink’s as glide as a nod to a blind 
horse. But Jock Porteous’s job — Lord help ye ! — I was under 
sentence the haill time. God ! but I couldna help laughing 
when I heard Jock skirling for mercy in the lads’ hands! 
“Mony a het skin ye hae gien me, neighbour,” thought I, “tak 
ye what’s gaun : time about’s fair play y ye’ll ken now what 
hanging’s gude for.” ’ 

‘ Come, come, this is all nonsense. Rat,’ said the procurator. 
‘ Ye canna creep out at that hole, lad ; you must speak to the 
point, you understand me, if you want favour ; gif-gaf makes 
gude friends, ye ken.’ 

‘ But how can I speak to the point, as your honour ca’s it,’ 
said Ratcliffe, demurely, and with an air of great simplicity, 
‘ when ye ken I was under sentence, and in the strong-room a’ 
the while the job was going on?’ 

‘ And how can we turn ye loose on the public again, Daddie 
Rat, unless ye do or say something to deserve it ? ’ 

‘ Well, then, d — n it 1 ’ answered the criminal, ‘ since it maun 
be sae, I saw Geordie Robertson among the boys that brake the 
jail ; I suppose that will do me some gude ? ’ 

‘ That’s speaking to the purpose, indeed,’ said the office-bearer; 
‘ and now. Rat, where think ye we’ll find him ? ’ 

‘ Deil haet o’ me kens,’ said Ratcliffe ; ‘ he’ll no likely gang 
back to ony o’ his auld howffs ; he’ll be off the country by this 
time. He has gude friends some gate or other, for a’ the life 
he’s led ; he’s been weel educate.’ 

‘ He’ll grace the gallows the better,’ said Mr. Sharpitlaw ; ‘ a 
desperate dog, to murder an officer of the city for doing his 
duty ! wha kens wha’s turn it might be next ? But you saw him 
plainly ? ’ 

‘ As plainly as I see you.’ 

‘ How was he dressed ? ’ said Sharpitlaw. 

‘ I couldna weel see ; something of a woman’s bit mutch on 
his head ; but ye never saw sic a ca’-throw. Ane couldna hae een 
to a’thing.’ 

‘ But did he speak to no one ? ’ said Sharpitlaw. 

‘They were a’ speaking and gabbling through other,’ said 


166 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


RatclifFe, who was obviously unwilling to carry his evidence 
farther than he could possibly help. 

‘This will not do, Ratcliffe,’ said the procurator; ‘you must 
speak out — out — out^^ tapping the table emphatically, as he re- 
peated that impressive monosyllable. 

‘It’s very hard, sir,’ said the prisoner; ‘and but for the 
under turnkey’s place ’ 

‘And the reversion of the captaincy — the captaincy of the 
tolbooth, man — that is, in case of glide behaviour.’ 

‘ Ay, ay,’ said Ratcliffe, ‘ gude behaviour ! there’s the deevil. 
And then it’s waiting for dead folks’ shoon into the bargain.’ 

‘ But Robertson’s head will weigh something,’ said Sharpit- 
law — ‘ something gay and heavy. Rat ; the town maun show 
cause — that’s right and reason — and then ye’ll hae freedom to 
enjoy your gear honestly.’ 

‘I dinna ken,’ said Ratcliffe ; ‘ it’s a queer way of beginning 
the trade of honesty — but deil ma care. Weel, then, I heard 
and saw him speak to the wench Effie Deans, that’s up there 
for child murder.’ 

‘ The deil ye did ^ Rat, this is finding a mare’s nest wd’ a 
witness. And the man that spoke to Butler in the Park, and 
that was to meet wi’ Jeanie Deans at Muschat’s Cairn — whew ! 
lay that and that thegither ! As sure as I live he’s been the 
father of the lassie’s wean.’ 

‘There hae been waur guesses than that, I’m thinking,’ 
observed Ratcliffe, turning his quid of tobacco in his cheek 
and squirting out the juice. ‘ I heard something a while syne 
about his drawing up wi’ a bonny quean about the Pleasaunts, 
and that it was a’ Wilson could do to keep him frae marrying 
her.’ 

Here a city officer entered, and told Sharpitlaw that they 
had the woman in custody whom he had directed them to bring 
before him. 

‘ It’s little matter now,’ said he, ‘ the thing is taking another 
turn ; however, George, ye may bring her in.’ 

The officer retired, and introduced, upon his return, a tall, 
strapping wench of eighteen or twenty, dressed fantastically, 
in a sort of blue riding -jacket, with tarnished lace, her hair 
clubbed like that of a man, a Highland bonnet, and a bunch of 
broken feathers, a riding-skirt (or petticoat) of scarlet camlet, 
embroidered with tarnished flowers. Her features were coarse 
and masculine, yet at a little distance, by dint of very bright 
wild -looking black eyes, an aquiline nose, and a commanding 


THE HEART OE MIDLOTHIAN 


167 


profile, appeared rather handsome. She flourished the switch 
she held in her hand, dropped a courtesy as low as a lady at a 
birthnight introduction, recovered herself seemingly according 
to Touchstone’s directions to Audrey, and opened the conversa- 
tion without waiting till any questions were asked. 

‘ God gie your honour gude e’en, and mony o’ them, bonny 
Mr. Sharpitlaw ! Gude e’en to ye, Daddie Ratton ; they tauld 
me ye were hanged, man; or did ye get out o’ John Dalgleish’s 
hands like half-hangit Maggie Dickson ? ’ 

‘Whisht, ye daft jaud,’ said Ratclifle, ‘and hear what’s said 
to ye.’ 

‘ Wi’ a’ my heart, Ratton. Great preferment for poor Madge 
to be brought up the street wi’ a grand man, wi’ a coat a’ 
passemented wi’ worset-lace, to speak wi’ provosts, and bailies, 
and town -clerks, and prokitors, at this time o’ day; and the 
haill town looking at me too. This is honour on earth for 
anes ! ’ 

‘ Ay, Madge,’ said Mr. Sharpitlaw, in a coaxing tone ; ‘ and 
ye’re dressed out in your braws, I see; these are not your 
every-days’ claiths ye have on ? ’ 

‘ Deil be in my fingers, then ! ' said Madge. ‘ Eh, sirs ! 
(observing Butler come into the apartment), there’s a minister 
in the tolbooth ; wha will ca’ it a graceless place now ? I’se 
warrant he’s in for the gude auld cause ; but it’s be nae cause 
o’ mine,’ and off she went into a song : — 

‘ Hey for cavaliers, ho for cavaliers, 

Dub a dub, dub a dub ; 

Have at old Beelzebub, — 

Oliver’s squeaking for fear.’ 

‘ Did you ever see that madwoman before ? ’ said Sharpitlaw 
to Butler. 

‘Not to my knowledge, sir,’ replied Butler. 

‘ I thought as much,’ said the procurator -fiscal, looking to- 
wards Ratclifle, who answered his glance with a nod of acqui- 
escence and intelligence. 

‘ But that is Madge Wildfire, as she calls herself,’ said the 
man of law to Butler. 

‘ Ay, that I am,’ said Madge, ‘ and that I have been ever since 
I was something better — heigh ho ! (and something like melan- 
choly dwelt on her features for a minute). But I canna mind 
when that was ; it was lang syne, at ony rate, and I’ll ne’er fash 
my thumb about it : 


168 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


I glance like the wildfire through country and town ; 

I’m seen on the causeway — I’m seen on the down ; 

The lightning that flashes so bright and so free, 

Is scarcely so blithe or so bonny as me. ’ 

‘ Hand your tongue, ye skirling limmer ! ' said the officer who 
had acted as master of the ceremonies to this extraordinary- 
performer, and w'ho was rather scandalised at the freedom of 
her demeanour before a person of Mr. Sharpitlaw’s import- 
ance — ‘hand your tongue, or I’se gie ye something to skirl 
for ! ’ 

‘ Let her alone, George,’ said Sharpitlaw, ‘ dinna put her out 
o’ tune ; I hae some questions to ask her. But first, Mr. Butler, 
take another look of her.’ 

‘Do sae, minister — do sae,’ cried Madge; ‘I am as weel 
worth looking at as ony book in your aught. And I can say the 
Single Carritch, and the Double Carritch, and justification, and 
effectual calling, and the Assembly of Divines at Westminster 
— that is,’ she added in a low tone, ‘ I could say them anes ; 
but it’s lang syne, and ane forgets, je ken.’ And poor Madge 
heaved another deep sigh. 

‘Weel, sir,’ said Mr. Sharpitlaw to Butler, ‘what think ye 
now?’ 

‘ As I did before,’ said Butler ; ‘ that I never saw the poor 
demented creature in my life before.’ 

‘ Then she is not the person whom you said the rioters last 
night described as Madge Wildfire ? ’ 

‘ Certainly not,’ said Butler. ‘ They may be near the same 
height, for they are both tall ; but I see little other resemblance.’ 

‘ Their dress, then, is not alike ? ’ said Sharpitlaw. 

‘Not in the least,’ said Butler. 

‘Madge, my bonny woman,’ said Sharpitlaw, in the same 
coaxing manner, ‘ what did ye do wi’ your ilka-day’s claise yester- 
day ?’ 

‘ I dinna mind,’ said Madge. 

‘ Where was ye yesterday at e’en, Madge ? ’ 

‘ I dinna mind ony thing about yesterday,’ answered Madge ; 

‘ ae day is eneugh for ony body to wun ower wi’ at a time, and 
ower muckle sometimes.’ 

‘But maybe, Madge, ye wad mind something about it if I 
was to gie ye this half-crown ? ’ said Sharpitlaw, taking out the 
piece of money. 

‘ That might gar me laugh, but it couldna gar me mind.’ 

‘ But, Madge,’ continued Sharpitlaw, ‘ .were I to send you to 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


169 


the warkhouse in Leith Wynd, and gar Jock Dalgleish lay the 
tawse on your back ’ 

‘That wad gar me greet,’ said Madge, sobbing, ‘but it 
couldna gar me mind, ye ken.’ 

‘She is ower far past reasonable folks’ motives, sir,’ said 
RatclifFe, ‘to mind siller, or John Dalgleish, or the cat and nine 
tails either ; but I think I could gar her tell us something.’ 

‘ Try her then, RatclifFe,’ said Sharpitlaw, ‘ for I am tired of 
her crazy prate, and be d — d to her.’ 

‘Madge,’ said RatclifFe, ‘hae ye ony joes now?’ 

‘An ony body ask ye, say ye dinna ken. Set liim to be 
speaking of my joes, auld Daddie Ratton ! ’ 

‘ I dare say ye hae deil ane ? ’ 

‘ See if I haena then,’ said Madge, with the toss of the head 
of affronted beauty ; ‘ there’s Rob the Ranter, and Will Fleming, 
and then there’s Geordie Robertson, lad — that’s Gentleman 
Geordie ; what think ye o’ that ? ’ 

RatclifFe laughed, and, winking to the procurator- fiscal, 
pursued the inquiry in his own way. ‘But, Madge, the lads 
only like ye wdien ye hae on your braws ; tliey wadna touch 
you wi’ a pair o’ tangs when you are in your auld ilka -day 
rags.’ 

‘Ye’re a leeing auld sorrow then,’ replied the fair one; 
‘for Gentle Geordie Robertson put my ilka -day’s claise on 
his ain bonny sell yestreen, and gaed a’ through the town 
wi’ them ; and gawsie and grand he lookit, like ony queen in 
the land. 

‘I dinna believe a word o’t,’ said RatclifFe, with another 
wink to the procurator. ‘ Thae duds were a’ o’ the colour o’ 
moonshine in the water. I’m thinking, Madge. The gown wad 
be a sky-blue scarlet, I’se warrant ye ? ’ 

‘ It was nae sic thing,’ said Madge, whose unretentive memory 
let out, in the eagerness of contradiction, all that she would 
have most wished to keep concealed, had her judgment been 
equal to her inclination. ‘ It was neither scarlet nor sky-blue, 
but my ain auld brown threshie-coat of a short-gown, and my 
mother’s auld mutch, and my red rokelay ; and he gaed me a 
croun and a kiss for the use o’ them, blessing on his bonny 
face — though it’s been a dear ane to me.’ 

‘ And where did he change his clothes again, hinny ? ’ said 
Sharpitlaw, in his most conciliatory manner. 

‘ The procurator’s spoiled a’,’ observed RatclifFe, dryly. 

And it was even so; for the question, put in so direct a 


170 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


shape, immediately awakened kladge to the propriety of being 
reserved upon those very topics on which liatclifte had in- 
directly seduced her to become communicative. 

‘ What was’t ye were speering at us, sir ? ’ she resumed, with 
an appearance of stolidity, so speedily assumed as showed there 
was a good deal of knavery mixed with her folly. 

‘ I asked you,’ said the procurator, ‘ at what hour, and to 
what place, Robertson brought back your clothes.’ 

‘ Robertson ! Lord baud a care o’ us ! what Robertson ? ’ | 

‘Why, the fellow we were speaking of. Gentle Geordie, as 
you call him.’ I 

‘ Geordie Gentle ! ’ answered Madge, with well-feigned amaze- 
ment. ‘ I dinna ken naebody they ca’ Geordie Gentle.’ 

‘ Come, my jo,’ said Sharpitlaw, ‘ this will not do ; you must 
tell us what you did with these clothes of yours.’ 

Madge Wildfire made no answer, unless the question may 
seem connected with the snatch of a song with which she 
indulged the embarrassed investigator : — 

‘ What did ye wi’ the bridal ring — bridal ring — bridal ring ? 

What did ye wi’ your wedding ring, ye little cutty quean, 0 ? 

I gied it till a sodger, a sodger, a sodger, 

I gied it till a sodger, an auld true love o’ mine, 0. ’ 

Of all the madwomen who have sung and said, since the 
days of Hamlet the Dane, if Ophelia be the most affecting, 
Madge Wildfire was the most provoking. 

The procurator -fiscal was in despair. ‘ I’ll take some 
measures with this d — d Bess of Bedlam,’ said he, ‘ that shall 
make her find her tongue.’ 

‘Wi’ your favour, sir,’ said Ratcliffe, ‘better let her mind 
settle a little. Ye have aye made out something.’ 

‘True,’ said the official person; ‘a brown short -gown, 
mutch, red rokelay — that agrees with your Madge Wildfire, 
Mr. Butler ? ’ Butler agreed that it did so. ‘ Yes, there was a 
sufficient motive for taking this crazy creature’s dress and 
name, while he was about such a job.’ 

‘ And I am free to say now^ said Ratcliffe 

‘ When you see it has come out without you,’ interrupted 
Sharpitlaw. 

‘ J ust sae, sir,’ reiterated Ratcliffe. ‘ I am free to say now, 
since it’s come out otherwise, that these were the clothes I saw 
Robertson wearing last night in the jail, when he was at the 
head of the rioters.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


171 


‘ That’s direct evidence,’ said Sharpitlaw ; ‘ stick to that, 
Rat. I will report favourably of you to the provost, for I have 
business for you to-night. It wears late ; I must home and 
get a snack, and I’ll be back in the evening. Keep Madge 
with you, RatclifFe, and try to get her into a good tune again.’ 
So saying, he left the prison. 


CHAPTER XVII 


And some they whistled, and some they sang, 

And some did loudly say, 

Whenever Lord Barnard’s horn it blew, 

‘ Away, Musgrave, away ! ’ 

Ballad of Little Musgrave. 

When the man of office returned to the Heart of Midlothian, 
he resumed^ his conference with Ratcliffe, of whose experience 
and assistance he now held himself secure. ‘ You must speak 
with this wench, Rat — this Effie Deans — you must sift her 
a wee bit; for as sure as a tether she will ken Robertson’s 
haunts ; till her. Rat — till her, without delay.’ 

‘Craving your pardon, Mr. Sharpitlaw,’ said the turnkey 
elect, ‘ that’s what I am not free to do.’ 

1 Free to do, man ! what the deil ails ye now ? I thought 
we had settled a’ that.’ 

‘ I dinna ken, sir,’ said Ratcliffe ; ‘ I hae spoken to this 
Effie. She’s strange to this place and to its ways, and to I 
a’ our ways, Mr. Sharpitlaw ; and she greets, the silly tawpie, 
and she’s breaking her heart already about this wild chield ; 
and were she the means o’ taking him, she wad break it out- 
right.’ 

‘ She wunna hae time, lad,’ said Sharpitlaw : ‘ the woodie 
will hae its ain o’ her before that ; a w'oman’s heart takes a 
lang time o’ breaking.’ 

‘ That’s according to the stuff they are made o’, sir,’ replied 
Ratcliffe. ‘ But to make a lang tale short, I canna undertake 
the job. It gangs against my conscience.’ 

‘ Your conscience. Rat ! ’ said Sharpitlaw, with a sneer, 
which the reader will probably think very natural upon the 
occasion. 

‘ Ou ay, sir,’ answered Ratcliffe, calmly, ‘just my conscience ; 
a’body has a conscience, though it may be ill wunnin at it. I 
think mine’s as weel out o’ the gate as maist folks’ are ; and 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


173 


yet it’s just like the noop of my elbow : it whiles gets a bit dirl 
on a corner.’ 

‘Weel, Rat,’ replied Sharpitlaw, ‘since ye are nice, I’ll speak 
to the hussy my sell.’ 

Sharpitlaw accordingly caused himself to be introduced 
into the little dark apartment tenanted by the unfortunate 
Effie Deans. The poor girl was seated on her little flock-bed, 
plunged in a deep reverie. Some food stood on the table, of a 
quality better than is usually supplied to prisoners, hut it was 
untouched. The person under whose care she was more par- 
ticularly placed said, ‘ that sometimes she tasted naething from 
the tae end of the four and twenty hours to the t’other, except 
a drink of water.’ 

Sharpitlaw took a chair, andj commanding the turnkey to 
retire, he opened the conversation, endeavouring to throw into 
his tone and countenance as much commiseration as they were 
capable of expressing, for the one was sharp and harsh, the 
other sly, acute, and selfish. 

‘ How’s a’ wi’ ye, Effie ? How d’ye find yoursell, hinny ? ’ 

A deep sigh was the only answer. 

‘Are the folk civil to ye, Effie? it’s my duty to inquire.’ 

‘ Very civil, sir,’ said Effie, compelling herself to answer, yet 
hardly knowing what she said. 

‘And your victuals,’ continued Sharpitlaw, in the same con- 
doling tone — ‘do you get what you like? or is there ony 
thing you would particularly fancy, as your health seems but 
silly ? ’ 

‘ It’s a’ very weel, sir, I thank ye,’ said the poor prisoner, in 
a tone how different from the sportive vivacity of those of the 
Lily of St. Leonard’s ! — ‘ it’s a’ very gude, ower gude for me.’ 

‘ He must have been a great villain, Effie, who brought you 
to this pass,’ said Sharpitlaw. 

The remark was dictated partly by a natural feeling, of 
which even he could not divest himself, though accustomed to 
practise on the passions of others, and keep a most heedful 
guard over his own, and partly by his wish to introduce the sort 
of conversation which might best serve his immediate purpose. 
Indeed, upon the present occasion these mixed motives of feel- 
ing and cunning harmonised together wonderfully ; ‘ for,’ said 
Sharpitlaw to himself, ‘ the greater rogue Robertson is, the more 
will be the merit of bringing him to justice.’ ‘ He must have 
been a great villain, indeed,’ he again reiterated ; ‘ and I wish 
I had the skelping o’ him.’ 


174 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ I may blame my sell mair than him/ said Effie. ‘ I was bred 
up to ken better ; but he, poor fellow ’ she stopped. 

‘Was a thorough blackguard a’ his life, I dare say,’ said 
Sharpitlaw. ‘ A stranger he was in this country, and a com- 
panion of that lawless vagabond, Wilson, I think, Effie ? ’ 

‘ It wad hae been dearly telling him that he had ne’er seen 
Wilson’s face.’ 

‘ That’s very true that you are saying, Effie,’ said Sharpitlaw. 
‘ Where was’t that Robertson and you were used to howff the- 
gither ? Somegate about the Laigh Cal ton, I am thinking.’ 

The simple and dispirited girl had thus far followed Mr. 
Sharpitlaw’s lead, because he had artfully adjusted his observa- 
tions to the thoughts he was pretty certain must be passing 
through her own mind, so that her answers became a kind 
of thinking aloud, a mood into which those who are either 
constitutionally absent in mind, or are rendered so by the 
temporary pressure of misfortune, may be easily led by a skilful 
train of suggestions. But the last observation of the procurator- 
fiscal was too much of the nature of a direct interrogatory, and 
it broke the charm accordingly. 

‘What was it that I was saying?’ said Effie, starting up 
from her reclining posture, seating herself upright, and hastily 
shading her dishevelled hair back from her wasted, but still 
beautiful, countenance. She fixed her eyes boldly and keenly 
upon Sharpitlaw — ‘ You are too much of a gentleman, sir — too 
much of an honest man, to take any notice of what a poor 
creature like me says, that can hardly ca’ my senses my ain — 
God help me ! ’ 

‘ Advantage ! I would be of some advantage to you if I 
could,’ said Sharpitlaw, in a soothing tone; ‘and I ken nae- 
thing sae likely to serve ye, Effie, as gripping this rascal, 
Robertson.’ 

‘ 0 dinna misca’ him, sir, that never misca’d you ! Robert- 
son ! I am sure I had naething to say against ony man o’ the 
name, and naething will I say.’ 

‘But if you do not heed your own misfortune, Effie, you 
should mind what distress he has brought on your family,’ said 
the man of law. 

‘ 0, Heaven help me !’ exclaimed poor Effie. ‘My poor father 
— my dear Jeanie ! 0, that’s sairest to bide of a’ ! 0, sir, if 

you hae ony kindness — if ye hae ony touch of compassion — for 
a’ the folk I see here are as hard as the wa’-stanes — if ye wad 
but bid them let my sister Jeanie in the next time she ca’s ! 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


175 


for when I hear them put her awa frae the door, and canna 
climb up to that high window to see sae muckle as her gown- 
tail, it’s like to pit me out o’ my judgment.’ And she looked 
on him with a face of entreaty so earnest, yet so humble, that 
she fairly shook the steadfast purpose of his mind. 

* You shall see your sister,’ he began, ‘ if you’ll tell me ’ — 
then interrupting himself, he added, in a more hurried tone — 
‘no, d — n it, you shall see your sister whether you tell me 
anything or no.’ So saying, he rose up and left the apart- 
ment. 

When he had rejoined RatclifFe, he observed, ‘ You are right, 
Ratton ; there’s no making much of that lassie. But ae thing 
I have cleared — that is, that Robertson has been the father of 
the bairn, and so I will wager a boddle it will be he that’s to 
meet wi’ Jeanie Deans this night at Muschat’s Cairn, and there 
we’ll nail him. Rat, or my name is not Gideon Sharpitlaw.’ 

‘ But,’ said RatclifFe, perhaps because he was in no hurry to 
see anything which was like to be connected with the discovery 
and apprehension of Robertson, ‘an that were the case, Mr. 
Butler wad hae kenn’d the man in the King’s Park to be the 
same person wi’ him in Madge Wildfire’s claise, that headed the 
mob.’ 

‘ That makes nae difierence, man,’ replied Sharpitlaw. ‘ The 
dress, the light, the confusion, and maybe a touch o’ a blackit 
cork, or a slake o’ paint — hout, Ratton, I have seen ye dress 
your ainsell that the deevil ye belang to durstna hae made 
oath t’ye.’ 

‘And that’s true, too,’ said RatclifFe. 

‘And besides, ye donnard carle,’ continued Shai’pitlaw, 
triumphantly, ‘ the minister did say, that he thought he knew 
something of the features of the birkie that spoke to him in 
the Park, though he could not charge his memory where or 
when he had seen them.’ 

‘It’s evident, then, your honour will be right,’ said Rat- 
clifFe. 

‘ Then, Rat, you and I will go with the party oursells this 
night, and see him in grips, or we are done wi’ him.’ 

‘ I seena muckle use I can be o’ to your honour,’ said RatclifFe, 
reluctantly. 

‘Use!’ answered Sharpitlaw. ‘You can guide the party; 
you ken the ground. Besides, I do not intend to quit sight o’ 
you, my good friend, till I have him in hand.’ 

‘Weel, sir,’ said RatclifFe, but in no joyful tone of acqui- 


176 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


escence, ‘ye maun hae it your ain way; but mind he’s a 
desperate man.’ 

‘We shall have that with us,’ answered Sharpitlaw, ‘that 
will settle him, if it is necessary.’ 

‘ But, sir,’ answered RatclifFe, ‘ I am sure I couldna under- 
take to guide you to Muschat’s Cairn in the night-time ; I ken 
the place, as mony does, in fair daylight, but how to find it by 
moonshine, amang sae mony crags and stanes, as like to each 
other as the collier to the deil, is mair than I can tell. I might 
as soon seek moonshine in water.’ 

‘What’s the meaning o’ this, RatclifFe?’ said Sharpitlaw, 
while he fixed his eye on the recusant, with a fatal and ominous 
expression. ‘Have you forgotten that you are still under 
sentence of death ? ’ 

‘ No, sir,’ said RatclifFe, ‘ that’s a thing no easily put out o’ 
memory; and if my presence be judged necessary, nae doTibt 
I maun gang wi’ your honour. But I was gaun to tell your 
honour of ane that has mair skeel o’ the gate than me, and 
that’s e’en Madge Wildfire.’ 

‘ The devil she has ! Do you think me as mad as she is, to 
trust to her guidance on such an occasion ? ’ 

‘ Your honour is the best judge,’ answered RatclifFe ; ‘ but I 
ken I can keep her in tune, and gar her hand the straight path ; 
she aften sleeps out, or rambles about amang thae hills the 
haill simmer night, the daft limmer.’ 

‘Well, RatclifFe,’ replied the procurator-fiscal, ‘if you think 
she can guide us the right way ; but take heed to what you are 
about, your life depends on your behaviour.’ 

‘ It’s a sair judgment on a man,’ said RatclifFe, ‘ when he has 
ance gane sae far wrang as I hae done, that deil a bit he can 
be honest, try’t whilk way he will.’ 

Such was the reflection of Ratcliffe, when he was left for a 
few minutes to himself, while the retainer of justice went to 
procure a proper warrant, and give the necessary directions. 

The rising moon saw the whole party free from the walls of 
the city, and entering upon the open ground. Arthur’s Seat, 
like a couchant lion of immense size, Salisbury Crags, like a 
huge belt or girdle of granite, were dimly visible. Holding their 
path along the southern side of the Canongate, they gained the 
Abbey of Holyrood House, and from thence found their way by 
step and stile into the King’s Park. They were at first four in 
number — an officer of justice and Sharpitlaw, who were well 
armed with pistols and cutlasses ; RatclifFe, who was not trusted 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


177 


with weapons, lest he miglit, peradventure, have used them on 
the wrong side ; and the female. But at the last stile, when 
they entered the chase, they were joined by other two officers, 
whom Sharpitlaw, desirous to secure sufficient force for his pur- 
pose, and at the same time to avoid observation, had directed 
to wait for him at this place. Ratcliffe saw this accession of 
strength with some disquietude, for he had hitherto thought it 
likely that Robertson, who was a bold, stout, and active young 
fellow, might have made his escape from Sharpitlaw and the 
single officer, by force or agility, without his being implicated 
in the matter. But the present strength of the followers of 
justice was overpowering, and the only mode of saving Robert- 
son, which the old sinner was well disposed to do, providing 
always he could accomplish his purpose without compromising 
his own safety, must be by contriving that he should have 
some signal of their approach. It was probably with this 
view that Ratcliffe had requested the addition of Madge to the 
party, having considerable confidence in her propensity to exert 
her lungs. Indeed, she had already given them so many speci- 
mens of her clamorous loquacity, that Sharpitlaw half deter- 
mined to send her back with one of the officers, rather than 
carry forward in his company a person so extremely ill qualified 
to be a guide in a secret expedition. It seemed, too, as if the 
open air, the approach to the hills, and the ascent of the moon, 
supposed to be so portentous over those whose brain is in- 
firm, made her spirits rise in a degree tenfold more loquacious 
than she had hitherto exhibited. To silence her by fair means 
seemed impossible ; authoritative commands and coaxing en- 
treaties she set alike at defiance ; and threats only made her 
sulky, and altogether intractable. 

‘ Is there no one of you,’ said Sharpitlaw, impatiently, ‘ that 
knows the way to this accursed place — this Nicol Muschat’s 
Cairn — excepting this mad clavering idiot 1 ’ 

‘Deil ane o’ them kens it, except mysell,’ exclaimed Madge ; 
‘ how suld they, the poor fule cowards ? But I hae sat on the 
grave frae bat-fleeing time till cock-crow, and had mony a fine 
crack wi’ Nicol Muschat and Ailie Muschat, that are lying 
sleeping below.’ 

‘ The devil take your crazy brain,’ said Sharpitlaw ; ‘ will 
you not allow the men to answer a question ? ’ 

The officers, obtaining a moment’s audience while Ratcliffe 
diverted Madge’s attention, declared that, though they had a 
general knowledge of the spot, they could not undertake to 

Vll 12, 


178 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


guide the party to it by the uncertain light of the moon, with 
such accuracy as to ensure success to their expedition. 

‘ What shall we do, Ratcliffe ? ’ said Sharpitlaw. ‘ If he sees 
us before we see him — and that’s what he is certain to do, if 
we go strolling about, without keeping the straight road — we 
may bid gude day to the job; and I wad rather lose one 
hundred pounds, baith for the credit of the police, and because 
the Provost says somebody maun be hanged for this job o’ 
Porteous, come o’t what likes.’ ■ 

‘I think,’ said Ratcliffe, ‘we maun just try Madge; and I’ll 
see if I can get her keepit in ony better order. And at ony 
rate, if he suld hear her skirling her auld ends o’ sangs, he’s no 
to ken for that that there’s ony body wi’ her.’ 

‘ That’s tme,’ said Sharpitlaw ; ‘ and if he thinks her alone 
he’s as like to come towards her as to rin frae her. So set 
forward, we hae lost ower muckle time already ; see to get her 
to keep the right road.’ 

‘ And what sort o’ house does Nicol Muschat and his wife 
keep now?’ said Ratcliffe to the madwoman, by way of 
humouring her vein of folly ; ‘ they were but thrawn folk lang 
syne, an a’ tales be true.’ 

‘ Oil, ay, ay, ay ; but a’s forgotten now,’ replied Madge, in 
the confidential tone of a gossip giving the history of her next- 
door neighbour. ‘Ye see, I spoke to them mysell, and tauld 
them byganes suld be byganes. Her throat’s sair misguggled 
and mashackered though ; she wears her corpse -sheet drawn 
weel up to hide it, but that canna hinder the bluid seiping 
through, ye ken. I wussed her to wash it in St. Anthony’s Well, 
and that will cleanse if ony thing can. But they say bluid never 
bleaches out o’ linen claith. Deacon Sanders’s new cleansing 
draps winna do’t ; I tried them mysell on a bit rag we hae at 
hame, that was mailed wi’ the bluid of a bit skirling wean that 
was hurt some gate, but out it winna come. Weel, ye’ll say 
that’s queer ; but I will bring it out to St. Anthony’s blessed 
Well some braw night just like this, and I’ll cry up Ailie Muschat, 
and she and I will hae a grand bouking-washing, and bleach our 
claise in the beams of the bonny Lady Moon, that’s far pleasanter 
to me than the sun ; the sun’s ower het, and ken ye, cummers, 
my brains are het eneugh already. But the moon, and the dew, 
and the night-wind, they are just like a caller kail-blade laid on 
my brow ; and whiles I think the moon just shines on purpose 
to pleasure me, when naebody sees her but mysell.’ 

This raving discourse she continued with prodigious volu- | 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


179 


bility, walking on at a great pace, and dragging Ratcliffe along 
wdth her, while he endeavoured, in appearance at least, if not 
in reality, to induce her to moderate her voice. 

All at once she stopped short upon the top of a little hillock, 
gazed upward fixedly, and said not one word for the space of 
five minutes. ‘ What the devil is the matter with her now ? ’ 
said Sharpitlaw to Ratcliffe. ‘ Can you not get her forward ? ’ 

‘Ye maun just take a grain o’ patience wi’ her, sir,’ said 
Ratcliffe. ‘ She’ll no gae a foot faster than she likes herselL’ 

‘ D — n her,’ said Sharpitlaw, ‘ I’ll take care she has her time 
in Bedlam or Bridewell, or both, for she’s both mad and mis- 
chievous.’ 

In the meanwhile, Madge, who had looked very pensive 
w’hen she first stopped, suddenly burst into a vehement fit of 
laughter, then paused and sighed bitterly, then Avas seized with 
a second fit of laughter, then, fixing her e^^es on the moon, 
lifted up her voice and sung — 

‘ Good even, good fair moon, good even to thee ; 

I prithee, dear moon, now show to ine 

The form and the features, the speech and degree, 

Of the man that true lover of mine shall be. 

But I need not ask that of the bonny Lady Moon ; I ken that 
w^eel eneugh mysell — true-\o\Q though he wasna. But naebody 
shall say that I ever tauld a word about the matter. But 
wdiiles I wish the bairn had lived. Weel, God guide us, there’s 
a heaven aboon us a’ (here she sighed bitterly), and a bonny 
moon, and sterns in it forbye ’ (and here she laughed once more). 

‘Are w^e to stand here all night?’ said Sharpitlaw, very 
impatiently. ‘ Drag her forward.’ 

‘ Ay, sir,’ said Ratcliffe, ‘ if we kenn’d whilk way to drag her 
that would settle it at ance. Come, Madge, hinny,’ addressing 
her, ‘we’ll no be in time to see Nicol and his wife unless ye 
show us the road.’ 

‘ In troth and that I will, Ratton,’ said she, seizing him by 
the arm, and resuming her route with huge strides, considering 
it was a female who took them. ‘ And I’ll tell ye, Ratton, blythe 
will Nicol Muschat be to see ye, for he says he kens weel there 
isna sic a villain out o’ hell as ye are, and he wad be ravished to 
hae a crack wi’ you— like to like, ye ken— it’s a proverb never 
fails ; and ye are baith a pair o’ the deevil’s peats, I trow — hard 
to ken whilk deserves the hettest corner o’ his ingle-side.’ 

Ratcliffe was conscience-struck, and could not forbear making 


180 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


an involuntary protest against this classification. ‘ I never shed 
blood,’ he replied. 

‘ But ye hae sank! it, Ratton — ye hae sank! blood mony a 
time. Folk kill wi’ the tongue as weel as wi’ the hand — wi’ the 
word as weel as wi’ the gulley ! — 

It is the bonny butcher lad, 

That wears the sleeves of blue, 

He sells the flesh on Saturday, 

On Friday that he slew. ’ 

‘And what is that I am doing now?’ thought Ratcliffe. 

‘ But I’ll hae nae wyte of Robertson’s young bluid, if I can help 
it.’ Then speaking apart to Madge, he asked her, ‘ Whether she 
did not remember ony o’ her auld sangs ? ’ 

‘ Mony a dainty ane,’ said Madge ; ‘ and blythely can I sing 
them, for lightsome sangs make merry gate.’ And she sang — 

‘ When the glede’s in the blue cloud, 

The lavrock lies still ; 

When the hound’s in the gi'een-wood, 

The hind keeps the hill.’ 

‘Silence her cursed noise, if you should throttle her,’ said 
Sharpitlaw ; ‘ I see somebody yonder. Keep close, my boys, 
and creep round the shoulder of the height. George Poinder, 
stay you with Ratcliffe and that mad yelling bitch ; and you 
other two, come with me round under the shadow of the brae.’ 

And he crept forward with the stealthy pace of an Indian 
savage, who leads his band to surprise an unsuspecting party 
of some hostile tribe. Ratcliffe saw them glide off, avoiding 
the moonlight, and keeping as much in the shade as possible. 
‘ Robertson’s done up,’ said he to himself ; ‘ thae young lads 
are aye sae thoughtless. What deevil could he hae to say to 
Jeanie Deans, or to ony woman on earth, that he suld gang 
awa’ and get his neck raxed for her ? And this mad quean, 
after cracking like a pen-gun and skirling like a pea-hen for 
the haill night, behoves just to hae hadden her tongue when 
her clavers might have done some gude ! But it’s aye the way 
wi’ women ; if they ever baud their tongues ava, ye may swear 
it’s for mischief. I wish I could set her on again without this 
blood-sucker kenning what I am doing. But he’s as gleg as 
MacKeachan’s elshin, that ran through sax plies of bend-leather 
and half an inch into the king’s heel.’ 

He then began to hum, but in a very low and suppressed 
tone, the first stanza of a favourite ballad of Wildfire’s, the 


ME HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


181 


Words of which bore some distant analogy with the situation of 
Robertson, trusting that the power of association would not 
fail to bring the rest to her mind : 

‘ There’s a bloodhound ranging Tinwald wood, 

There’s harness glancing sheen ; 

There’s a maiden sits on Tinwald brae, 

And she sings loud between. ’ 

Madge had no sooner received the catchword, than she vindi- 
cated RatclifFe’s sagacity by setting off at score with the song : 

‘ 0 sleep ye sound. Sir James, she said, 

When ye suld rise and ride ? 

There’s twenty men, wi’ bow and blade. 

Are seeking where ye hide.’ 

Though Ratcliffe was at a considerable distance from the 
spot called Muschat’s Cairn, yet his eyes, practised like those 
of a cat to penetrate darkness, could mark that Robertson had 
caught the alarm. George Poinder, less keen of sight or less 
attentive, was not aware of his flight any more than Sharpitlaw 
and his assistants, whose view, though they were considerably 
nearer to the cairn, was intercepted by the broken nature of 
the ground under which they were screening themselves. At 
length, however, after the interval of five or six minutes, they 
also perceived that Robertson had fled, and rushed hastily 
towards the place, while Sharpitlaw called out aloud, in the 
harshest tones of a voice which resembled a saw-mill at work, 
‘Chase, lads — chase — hand the brae; I see him on the edge 
of the hill ! ’ Then hallooing back to the rear- guard of his 
detachment, he issued his farther orders : ‘ Ratclifle, come here 
and detain the woman ; George, run and keep the stile at the 
Duke’s Walk; Ratclifle, come here directly, but first knock 
out that mad bitch’s brains ! ’ 

‘Ye had better rin for it, Madge,’ said Ratclifle, ‘for it’s ill 
dealing wi’ an angry man.’ 

Madge Wildfire was not so absolutely void of common sense 
as not to understand this innuendo ; and while Ratclifle, in 
seemingly anxious haste of obedience, hastened to the spot where 
Sharpitlaw waited to deliver up Jeanie Deans to his custody, 
she fled with all the despatch she could exert in an opposite 
direction. Thus the whole party were separated, and in rapid 
motion of flight or pursuit, excepting Ratclifle and Jeanie, 
whom, although making no attempt to escape, he held fast by 
the cloak, and who remained standing by Muschat’s Cairn, 


CHAPTER XVIII 


You have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner the very 
debt of your calling. 

Meamre for Measure. 

Jeanie Deans — for here our story unites itself with that part 
of the narrative which broke off at the end of the fifteenth 
chapter — while she waited, in terror and amazement, the hasty 
advance of three or four men towards her, was yet more startled 
at their suddenly breaking asunder, and giving chase in different 
directions to the late object of her terror, who became at that 
moment, though she could not well assign a reasonable cause, 
rather the cause of her interest. One of the party — it was 
Sharpitlaw — came straight up to her, and saying, ‘ Your name 
is Jeanie Deans, and you are my prisoner,’ immediately added, 
‘but if you will tell me which way he ran I will let you go.’ 

‘ I dinna ken, sir,’ was all the poor girl could utter ; and, 
indeed, it is the phrase which rises most readily to the lips of 
any person in her rank, as the readiest reply to any embarrass- 
ing question. 

‘But,’ said Sharpitlaw, ‘ye ken wha it was ye were speaking 
wi’, my leddy, on the hillside, and midnight sae near ; ye surely 
ken that, my bonny woman ? ’ 

‘I dinna ken, sir,’ again iterated Jeanie, who really did not 
comprehend in her terror the nature of the questions which 
were so hastily put to her in this moment of surprise. 

‘We will try to mend your memory by and by, hinny,’ said 
Sharpitlaw, and shouted, as we have already told the reader, 
to Ratcliffe to come up and take charge of her, while he 
himself directed the chase after Robertson, which he still 
hoped might be successful. As Ratcliffe approached, Sharpit- 
law pushed the young woman towards him with some rude- 
ness, and betaking himself to the more important object of his 
quest, began to scale crags and scramble up steep banks, with 
an agility of which his profession and his general gravity of 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


183 


demeanour would previously have argued him incapable. In a 
few minutes there was no one within sight, and only a distant 
halloo from one of the pursuers to the other, faintly heard on 
the side of the hill, argued that there was any one within hear- 
ing. Jeanie Deans was deft in the clear moonlight, standing 
under the guard of a person of whom she knew nothing, and, 
what was worse, concerning whom, as the reader is well aware, 
she could have learned nothing that would not have increased 
her teiTor. 

When all in the distance was silent, RatclifFe for the first 
time addressed her, and it was in that cold sarcastic indifferent 
tone familiar to habitual depravity, whose crimes are instigated 
by custom rather than by passion. ‘ This is a braw night for 
ye, dearie,’ he said, attempting to pass his arm across her 
shoulder,. ‘ to be on the green hill wi’ your jo.’ Jeanie extricated 
herself from his grasp, but did not make any reply. ‘ I think 
lads and lasses,’ continued the ruffian, ‘ dinna meet at Muschat’s 
Cairn at midnight to crack nuts,’ and he again attempted to 
take hold of her. 

‘ If ye are an officer of justice, sir,’ said Jeanie, again eluding 
his attempt to seize her, ‘ ye deserve to have your coat stripped 
from your back.’ 

‘ Very true, hinny,’ said he, succeeding forcibly in his at- 
tempt to get hold of her, ‘ but suppose I should strip your cloak 
off first ? ’ 

‘Ye are more a man, I am sure, than to hurt me, sir,’ 
said Jeanie; ‘for God’s sake have pity on a half -distracted 
creature ! ’ 

‘ Come, come,’ said RatclifFe, ‘ you’re a good-looking wench, 
and should not be cross-grained. I was going to be an honest 
man, but the devil has this very day flung first a lawyer and 
then a woman in my gate. I’ll tell you what, Jeanie, they are 
out on the hillside ; if you’ll be guided by me. I’ll carry you to 
a wee bit comer in the Pleasance that I ken o’ in an auld wife’s, 
that a’ the prokitors o’ Scotland wot naething o’, and we’ll send 
Robertson word to meet us in Yorkshire, for there is a set o’ 
braw lads about the midland counties, that I hae dune business 
wi’ before now, and sae we’ll leave Mr. Sharpitlaw to whistle on 
his thumb.’ 

It was fortunate for Jeanie, in an emergency like the present, 
that she possessed presence of mind and courage, so soon as the 
first hurry of surprise had enabled her to rally her recollec- 
tion. She saw the risk she was in from a ruffian, who not only 


184 WAVERLEY NOVELS 

was such by profession, but had that evening been stupifying, 
by means of strong liquors, the internal aversion which he 
felt at the business on which Sharpitlaw had resolved to 
employ him. 

‘ Dinna speak sae loud,’ said she, in a low voice, ‘ he’s up 
yonder.’ 

‘Who? Robertson?’ said Ratcliffe, eagerly. 

‘Ay,’ replied Jeanie — ‘up yonder’; and she pointed to the 
ruins of the hermitage and chapel. 

‘ By G — d, then,’ said Ratcliffe, ‘ I’ll make my ain of him, 
either one way or other ; wait for me here.’ 

But no sooner had he set off, as fast as he could run, towards 
the chapel, than Jeanie started in an opposite direction, over 
high and low, on the nearest path homeward. Her juvenile 
exercise as a herdswoman had put ‘life and mettle’ in her 
heels, and never had she followed Dustiefoot, when the cows 
were in the corn, with half so much speed as she now cleared 
the distance betwixt Muschat’s Cairn and her father’s cottage 
at St. Leonard’s. To lift the latch, to enter, to shut, bolt, 
and double bolt the door, to draw against it a heavy article 
of furniture, which she could not have moved in a moment 
of less energy, so as to make yet farther provision against 
violence, was almost the work of a moment, yet done with such 
silence as equalled the celerity. 

Her next anxiety was upon her father’s account, and she 
drew silently to the door of his apartment, in order to satisfy 
herself whether he had been disturbed by her return. He w^as 
awake — probably had slept but little ; but the constant presence 
of his own sorrows, the distance of his apartment from the 
outer door of the house, and the precautions which Jeanie had 
taken to conceal her departure and return, had prevented him 
from being sensible of either. He was engaged in his devotions, 
and Jeanie could distinctly hear him use these words: ‘And 
for the other child Thou hast given me to be a comfort and 
stay to my old age, may her days be long in the land, according 
to the promise Thou hast given to those who shall honour 
father and mother ; may all her purchased and promised bless- 
ings be multiplied upon her ; keep her in the watches of the 
night, and in the uprising of the morning, that all in this land 
may know that Thou hast not utterly hid Thy face from those 
that seek Thee in truth and in sincerity.’ He was silent, but 
probably continued his petition in the strong fervency of mental 
devotion. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 18S 

His daughter retired to her apartment, comforted, that while 
she was exposed to danger, her head had been covered by the 
prayers of the just as by an helmet, and under the strong con- 
fidence that, while she walked worthy of the protection of 
Heaven, she would experience its countenance. It was in that 
moment that a vague idea first darted across her mind, that 
something might yet be achieved for her sister’s safety, conscious 
as she now was of her innocence of the unnatural murder with 
which she stood charged. It came, as she described it, on her 
mind like a sun -blink on a stormy sea; and although it 
instantly vanished, yet she felt a degree of composure which 
she had not experienced for many days, and could not help 
being strongly persuaded that, by some means or other, she 
would be called upon and directed to work out her sister’s de- 
liverance. She went to bed, not forgetting her usual devotions, 
the more fervently made on account of her late deliverance, and 
she slept soundly in spite of her agitation. 

We must return to Ratcliff e, who had started, like a grey- 
hound from the slips when the sportsman cries halloo, so soon 
as Jeanie had pointed to the ruins. Whether he meant to aid 
Robertson’s escape or to assist his pursuers may be very 
doubtful ; perhaps he did not himself know, but had resolved 
to be guided by circumstances. He had no opportunity, how- 
ever, of doing either; for he had no sooner surmounted the 
steep ascent, and entered under the broken arches of the ruins, 
than a pistol w^as presented at his head, and a harsh voice com- 
manded him, in the king’s name, to surrender himself prisoner. 

‘ Mr. Sharpitlaw ! ’ said RatclifFe, surprised, ‘ is this your 
honour ? ’ 

‘ Is it only you, and be d — d to you ? ’ answered the fiscal, 
still more disappointed ; ‘ what made you leave the woman ? ’ 

‘ She told me she saw Robertson go into the ruins, so I made 
what haste I could to cleek the callant.’ 

‘ It’s all over now,’ said Sharpitlaw, ‘ we shall see no more of 
him to-night ; but he shall hide himself in a bean-hool, if he 
remains on Scottish ground without my finding him. Call back 
the people, Ratcliffe.’ 

RatclifFe hallooed to the dispersed officers, who willingly 
obeyed the signal ; for probably there was no individual among 
them who would have been much desirous of a rencontre hand 
to hand, and at a distance from his comrades, with such an 
active and desperate fellow as Robertson. 

‘ And where are the two women ? ’ said Shai*pitlaw. 


186 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘Both made their heels serve them, I suspect/ replied Rat- 
clifFe, and he hummed the end of the old song — 

‘ Then hey play up the rin-awa’ bride, 

For she has taeii the gee.’ 

‘ One woman,’ said Sharpitlaw, for, like all rogues, he was 
a great calumniator of the fair sex* — ‘ one woman is enough to 
dark the fairest ploy that ever was planned ; and how could I 
be such an ass as to expect to carry through a job that had two 
in it ? But we know how to come by them both, if they are 
wanted, that’s one good thing.’ 

Accordingly, like a defeated general, sad and sulky, he led 
back his discomfited forces to the metropolis, and dismissed 
them for the night. 

The next morning early, he was under the necessity of mak- 
ing his report to the sitting magistrate of the day. The gentle- 
man who occupied the chair of office on this occasion, for the 
bailies {Anglicd, aldermen) take it by rotation, chanced to be 
the same by whom Butler was committed, a person very gener- 
ally respected among his fellow-citizens. Something he was of 
a humorist, and rather deficient in general education; but 
acute, patient, and upright, possessed of a fortune acquired by 
honest industry, which made him perfectly independent ; and, 
in short, very happily qualified to support the respectability of 
the office which he held. 

Mr. Middleburgh had just taken his seat, and was debating 
in an animated manner, with one of his colteagues, the doubtful 
chances of a game at golf which they had played the day before, 
when a letter was delivered to him, addressed ‘For Bailie 
Middleburgh — These : to be forw^arded with speed.’ It con- 
tained these words : — 

‘ Sir, 

‘ I know you to be a sensible and a considerate magistrate, 
and one who, as such, will be content to worship God though 
the devil bid you. I therefore expect that, notwithstanding the 
signature of this letter acknowledges my share in an action 
which, in a proper time and place, I would not fear either to 
avow or to justify, you will not on that account reject what 
evidence I place before you. The clergyman, Butler, is innocent 
of all but involuntary presence at an action which he wanted 
spirit to approve of, and from which he endeavoured, with his 

* See Note 22. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


187 


best set phrases, to dissuade us. But it was not for him that 
it is my hint to speak. There is a woman in your jail, 
fallen under the edge of a law so cruel that it has hung by 
the wall, like unscoured armour, for twenty years, and is now 
brought down and whetted to spill the blood of the most 
beautiful and most innocent creature whom the walls of a prison 
ever girdled in. Her sister knows of her innocence, as she 
communicated to her that she was betrayed by a villain. 0 that 
high Heaven 

Would put in every honest hand a whip, 

To scourge me such a villain through the world ! 

‘ I write distractedly. But this girl — this Jeanie Deans, is a 
peevish Puritan, superstitious and scrupulous after the manner 
of her sect ; and I pray your honour, for so my phrase must go, 
to press upon her that her sister’s life depends upon her testi- 
mony. But though she should remain silent, do not dare to 
think that the young woman is guilty, far less to permit her 
execution. Remember, the death of Wilson was fearfully 
avenged ; and those yet live who can compel you to drink the 
dregs of your poisoned chalice I say, remember Porteous — 
and say that you had good counsel from 

‘ One of his Slayers.’ 

The magistrate read over this extraordinary letter twice or 
thrice. At first he was tempted to throw it aside as the pro- 
duction of a madman, so little did ‘ the scraps from play books,’ 
as he termed the poetical quotation, resemble the correspondence 
of a rational being. On a re-perusal, however, he thought that, 
amid its incoherence, he could discover something like a tone 
of awakened passion, though expressed in a manner quaint and 
unusual. 

‘ It is a cruelly severe statute,’ said the magistrate to his 
assistant, ‘ and I wish the girl could be taken from under the 
letter of it. A child may have been born, and it may have 
been conveyed away while the mother was insensible, or it may 
have perished for want of that relief which the poor creature 
herself — helpless, terrified, distracted, despairing, and exhausted 
— may have been unable to afford to it. And yet it is certain, 
if the woman is found guilty under the statute, execution will 
follow. The crime has been too common, and examples are 
necessary.’ 

‘ But if this other wench,’ said the city-clerk, ‘ can speak to 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


m 

her sister communicating her situation, it will take the case 
from under the statute.’ 

‘Very true,’ replied the Bailie; ‘and I will walk out one of 
these days to St. Leonard’s and examine the girl myself. I 
know something of their father Deans — an old true-blue Camer- 
onian, who would see house and family go to wreck ere he would 
disgrace his testimony by a sinful complying with the defections 
of the times ; and such he will probably uphold the taking an 
oath before a civil magistrate. If they are to go on and flourish 
with their bull-headed obstinacy, the legislature must pass an 
act to take their affirmations, as in the case of Quakers. But 
surely neither a father nor a sister will scruple in a case of 
this kind. As I said before, I will go speak with them myself, 
when the hurry of this Porteous investigation is somewhat over ; 
their pride and spirit of contradiction will be far less alarmed 
than if they were called into a court of justice at once.’ 

‘ And I suppose Butler is to remain incarcerated ? ’ said the 
city-clerk. 

‘For the present, certainly,’ said the magistrate. ‘But I 
hope soon to set him at liberty upon bail.’ 

‘ Do you rest upon the testimony of that light-headed letter?’ 
asked the clerk. 

‘ Not very much,’ answered the bailie ; ‘ and yet there is 
something striking about it too ; it seems the letter of a man 
beside himself, either from great agitation or some great sense 
of guilt.’ 

‘Yes,’ said the town-clerk, ‘it is very like the letter of a 
mad strolling play-actor, who deserves to be hanged with all 
the rest of his gang, as your honour justly observes.’ 

‘ I was not quite so bloodthirsty,’ continued the magistrate. 
‘ But to the point. Butler’s private character is excellent ; and 
I am given to understand, by some inquiries I have been making 
this morning, that he did actually arrive in town only the day 
before yesterday, so that it was impossible he could have been 
concerned in any previous machinations of these unhappy rioters, 
and it is not likely that he should have joined them on a 
suddenty.’ 

‘ There’s no saying anent that ; zeal catches fire at a slight 
spark as fast as a brunstane match,’ observed the secretary. 
‘ I hae kenn’d a minister wad be fair gude-day and fair gude-e’en 
wi’ ilka man in the parochine, and hing just as quiet as a 
rocket on a stick, till ye mentioned the word abjuration oath, 
or patronage, or sic-like, and then, whiz, he was off, and up in 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


189 


the air an hundred miles beyond common manners, common 
sense, and common comprehension.’ 

‘I do not understand,’ answered the burgher magistrate, 
‘ that the young man Butler’s zeal is of so inflammable a char- 
acter. But I will make further investigation. What other 
business is there before us ? ’ 

And they proceeded to minute investigations concerning the 
aflair of Porteous’s death, and other affairs through which this 
history has no occasion to trace them. 

In the course of their business they were interrupted by an 
old woman of the lower rank, extremely haggard in look and 
wretched in her apparel, who thrust herself into the council 
room. 

‘ What do you want, gudewife ? Who are you ? ’ said Bailie 
Middleburgh. 

‘ What do I want ! ’ replied she in a sulky tone. ‘ I want 
my bairn, or I want naething frae nane o’ ye, for as grand’s ye 
arc.’ And she went on muttering to herself, with the wayward 
spitefulness of age — ‘ They maun hae lordships and honours, 
nae doubt ; set them up, the gutter-bloods ! and deil a gentle- 
man amang them.’ Then again addressing the sitting magis- 
trate — ‘Will your honour gie me back my puir crazy bairn? 
His honour ! I hae kenn’d the day when less wad ser’d him, 
the oe of a Campvere skipper.’ 

‘ Good woman,’ said the magistrate to this shrewish suppli- 
cant, ‘ tell us what it is you want, and do not interrupt the 
court.’ 

‘ That’s as muckle as till say, “ Bark, Bawtie, and be dune 
wi’t ! ” I tell ye,’ raising her termagant voice, ‘ I want my 
bairn ! is na that braid Scots ? 

‘ Who are you ? who is your bairn ? ’ demanded the magis- 
trate. 

‘ Wha am I ? Wha suld I be, but Meg Murdockson, and 
wha suld my bairn be but Magdalen Murdockson ? Your guard 
soldiers, and your constables, and your officers ken us weel 
eneugh when they rive the bits o’ duds aff our backs, and take 
what penny o’ siller we hae, and harle us to the correction- 
house in Leith Wynd, and pettle us up wi’ bread and water, 
and sic-like sunkets.’ 

‘ Who is she ? ’ said the magistrate, looking round to some 
of his people. 

‘Other than a gude ane, sir,’ said one of the city-officers, 
shrugging his shoulders and smiling. 


190 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘Will ye say sae?’ said the termagant, her eye gleaming 
with impotent fury; ‘an I had ye amang the Frigate Whins, 
wadna 1 set my ten talents in your wuzzent face for that very 
word?’ and she suited the word to the action, by spreading 
out a set of claws resembling those of St. George’s dragon on a 
country sign-post. 

‘ What does she want here ? ’ said the impatient magistrate. 
‘ Can she not tell her business, or go away ? ’ 

‘It’s my bairn — it’s Magdalen Murdockson I’m wantin’,’ 
answered the beldam, screaming at the highest pitch of her 
cracked and mistuned voice ; ‘ havena I been tellin’ ye sae this 
half-hour? And if ye are deaf, what needs ye sit cockit up 
there, and keep folk scraughin’ t’ye this gate ? ’ 

‘ She wants her daughter, sir,’ said the same officer whose 
interference had given the hag such offence before — ‘her 
daughter, who was taken up last night — Madge Wildfire, as 
they ca’ her.’ 

‘ Madge Hellfire, as they ca’ her ! ’ echoed the beldam ; 
‘ and what business has a blackguard like you to ca’ an honest 
woman’s bairn out o’ her ain name ? ’ 

‘An honest woman’s bairn, Maggie?’ answered the peace- 
officer, smiling and shaking his head with an ironical emphasis 
on the adjective, and a calmness calculated to provoke to mad- 
ness the furious old shrew. 

‘ If I am no honest now, I was honest ance,’ she replied ; 
‘ and that’s mair than ye ean say, ye born and bred thief, that 
never kenn’d ither folks’ gear frae your ain sinee the day ye 
was cleckit. Honest, say ye ? Ye py kit your mother’s pouch 
o’ twal pennies Scotch when ye were five years auld, just as she 
was taking leave o’ your father at the fit o’ the gallows.’ 

‘ She has you there, George,’ said the assistants, and there 
was a general laugh ; for the wit was fitted for the meridian of 
the place where it was uttered. This general applause some- 
what gratified the passions of the old hag ; the ‘ grim feature ’ 
smiled, and even laughed, but it was a laugh of bitter scorn. 
She condescended, however, as if appeased by the success of her 
sally, to explain her business more distinctly, when the magis- 
trate, commanding silence, again desired her either to speak out 
her errand or to leave the place. 

‘ Her bairn,’ she said, ‘ tvas her bairn, and she came to fetch 
her out of ill haft and waur guiding. If she wasna sae w'^ise as 
ither folk, few ither folk had suffered as muckle as she had 
done ; forbye that she could fend the waur for hersell within the 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


191 


four wa’s of a jail. She could prove by fifty witnesses, and 
fifty to that, that her daughter had never seen Jock Porteous, 
alive or dead, since he had gien her a loundering Avi’ his cane, 
the neger that he was ! for driving a dead cat at the provost’s 
wig on the Elector of Hanover’s birthday.’ 

Notwithstanding the wretched appearance and violent de- 
meanour of this Avoman, the magistrate felt the justice of her 
argument, that her child might be as dear to her as to a more 
fortunate and more amiable mother. He proceeded to investi- 
gate the circumstances Avhich had led to Madge Murdock son’s 
(or Wildfire’s) aiTest, and as it was clearly shoAvn that she had 
not been engaged in the riot, he contented himself with direct- 
ing that an eye should be kept upon her by the police, but 
that for the present she should be alloAved to return home Avith 
her mother. During the interval of fetching Madge from the 
jail, the magistrate endeavoured to discover Avhether her mother 
had been priA^y to the change of dress betAvixt that young 
Avoman and Robertson. But on this point he could obtain no 
light. She persisted in declaring that she had never seen 
Robertson since his remarkable escape during service-time ; and 
that, if her daughter had changed clothes Avith him, it must 
have been during her absence at a hamlet about tAvo miles out 
of toAvn, called Duddingstone, Avhere she could prove that she 
passed that eventful night. And, in fact, one of the toAvn- 
officers, Avho had been searching for stolen linen at the cottage 
of a AvasherAvoman in that village, gave his evidence, that he 
had seen Maggie Murdockson there, whose presence had con- 
siderably increased his suspicion of the house in which she Avas 
a visitor, in respect that he considered her as a person of no 
good reputation. 

‘ I tauld ye sae,’ said the hag ; ‘ see noAV Avhat it is to hae a 
character, gude or bad ! Now, maybe, after a’, I could tell ye 
something about Porteous that you council -chamber bodies 
never could find out, for as muckle stir as ye mak.’ 

All eyes were turned toAvards her, all ears Avere alert. ‘ Speak 
out ! ’ said the magistrate. 

‘ It Avill be for your ain gude,’ insinuated the toAvn-clerk. 

^Dinna keep the bailie Avaiting,’ urged the assistants. ' 

She remained doggedly silent for tAvo or three minutes, cast- 
ing around a malignant and sulky glance, that seemed to enjoy 
the anxious suspense Avith Avhich they AA'aited her answer. And 
then she broke forth at once — ‘ A’ that I ken about him is, that 
he was neither soldier nor gentleman, but just a thief and a 


192 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


blackguard, like maist o’ yoursells, dears. What will ye gie 
me for that news, now ? He wad hae served the Glide Town 
lang or provost or bailie wad hae fund that out, my jo ! ’ 

While these matters were in discussion, Madge Wildfire 
entered, and her first exclamation was, ‘ Eh ! see if there isna 
our auld ne’er-do-weel deevil’s buckie o’ a mither. Hegh, sirs ! 
but we are a hopefu’ family, to be twa o’ us in the guard at 
ance. But there were better days wi’ us ance ; were there na, 
mither ? ’ 

Old Maggie’s eyes had glistened with something like an ex- 
pression of pleasure when she saw her daughter set at liberty. 
But either her natural affection, like that of the tigress, could 
not be displayed without a strain of ferocity, or there was 
something in the ideas which Madge’s speech awakened that 
again stirred her cross and savage temper. ‘What signifies 
what we were, ye street-raking limmer ! ’ she exclaimed, pushing 
her daughter before her to the door, with no gentle degree of 
violence. ‘ I’se tell thee what thou is now : thou’s a crazed 
hellicat Bess o’ Bedlam, that sail taste naething but bread and 
water for a fortnight, to serve ye for the plague ye hae gien 
me ; and ower gude for ye, ye idle tawpie ! ’ 

Madge, however, escaped from her mother at the door, ran 
back to the foot of the table, dropped a very low and fantastic 
courtesy to the judge, and said, with a giggling laugh — ‘ Our 
minnie’s sair mis -set, after her ordinar, sir. She’ll hae had 
some quarrel wi’ her auld gudeman — that’s Satan, ye ken, sirs.’ 
This explanatory note she gave in a low confidential tone, and 
the spectators of that credulous generation did not hear it with- 
out an involuntary shudder. ‘ The gudeman and her disna aye 
gree weel, and then I maun pay the piper ; but my back’s broad 
eneugh to bear’t a’, an if she hae nae havings, that’s nae reason 
why wiser folk shouldna hae some.’ Here another deep courtesy, 
when the ungracious voice of her mother was heard. 

‘ Madge, ye limmer ! If I come to fetch ye ! ’ 

‘ Hear till her,’ said Madge. ‘ But I’ll wun out a gliff the 
night for a’ that, to dance in the moonlight, when her and the 
gudeman will be whirrying through the blue lift on a broom- 
shank, to see Jean Jap, that they hae putten intill the Kirkcaldy 
tolbooth ; ay, they will hae a merry sail ower Inchkeith, and 
ower a’ the bits o’ bonny waves that are poppling and plashing 
against the rocks in the gowden glimmer o’ the moon, ye ken. 
I’m coming, mother — I’m coming,’ she concluded, on hearing a 
scuffle at the door betwixt the beldam and the officers, who were 



MADGE AND HER MOTHER BEFORE BAILIE MIDDLEBURGH. 




I 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


193 


endeavouring to prevent her re -entrance. Madge then waved 
her hand wildly towards the ceiling, and sung, at the topmost 
pitch of her voice — 

‘ Up in the air, 

On my bonny grey mare, 

And I see, and I see, and I see her yet ; ’ 

and with a hop, skip, and jump, sprung out of the room, as the 
witches of Macbeth used, in less refined days, to seem to fly 
upwards from the stage. 

Some weeks intervened before Mr. Middleburgh, agreeably 
to his benevolent resolution, found an opportunity of taking a 
walk towards St. Leonard’s, in order to discover whether it might 
be possible to obtain the evidence hinted at in the anonymous 
letter respecting Efiie Deans. 

In fact, the anxious perquisitions made to discover the 
murderers of Porteous occupied the attention of all concerned 
with the administration of justice. 

In the course of these inquiries, two circumstances happened 
material to our story. Butler, after a close investigation of his 
conduct, was declared innocent of accession to the death of 
Porteous ; but, as having been present during the whole trans- 
action, was obliged to find bail not to quit his usual residence 
at Liberton, that he might appear as a witness when called 
upon. The other incident regarded the disappearance of Madge 
Wildfire and her mother from Edinburgh. When they were 
sought, with the purpose of subjecting them to some further 
interrogatories, it was discovered by Mr. Sharpitlaw that they 
had eluded the observation of the police, and left the city so 
soon as dismissed from the council-chamber. No efforts could 
trace the place of their retreat. 

In the meanwhile, the excessive indignation of the council 
of regency, at the slight put upon their authority by the 
murder of Porteous, had dictated measures, in which their own 
extreme desire of detecting the actors in that conspiracy were 
consulted, in preference to the temper of the people and the 
character of their churchmen. An act of parliament was hastily 
passed, offering two hundred pounds rew^ard to those w^ho should 
inform against any person concerned in the deed, and the 
penalty of death, by a very unusual and severe enactment, was 
denounced against those who should harbour the guilty. But 
what was chiefly accounted exceptionable, was a clause, appoint- 

13 


VII 


194 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


ing the act to be read in churches by the officiating clergynian, 
on the first Sunday of every month, for a certain period, 
immediately before the sermon. The ministers who should 
refuse to comply with this injunction were declared, for the 
first offence, incapable of sitting or voting in any church 
judicature, and for the second, incapable of holding any ecclesi- 
astical preferment in Scotland. 

This last order united in a common cause those who might 
privately rejoice in Porteous’s death, though they dared not 
vindicate the manner of it, with the more scrupulous Presby- 
terians, who held that even the pronouncing the name of the 
‘Lords Spiritual’ in a Scottish pulpit was, quodammodo, an 
acknowledgment of Prelacy, and that the injunction of the 
legislature was an interference of the civil government with 
the jm divinum of Presbytery, since to the General Assembly 
alone, as representing the invisible head of the kirk, belonged 
the sole and exclusive right of regulating whatever pertained 
to public worship. Very many also, of different political or 
religious sentiments, and therefore not much moved by these 
considerations, thought they saw, in so violent an act of parlia- 
ment, a more vindictive spirit than became the legislature of a 
great country, and something like an attempt to trample upon 
the rights and independence of Scotland. The various steps 
adopted for punishing the city of Edinburgh, by taking away 
her charter and liberties, for what a violent and over-mastering 
mob had done within her walls, were resented by many, who 
thought a pretext was too hastily taken for degrading the ancient 
metropolis of Scotland. In short, there was much heart-burning, 
discontent, and disaffection occasioned by these ill-considered 
measures.* 

Amidst these heats and dissensions, the trial of Effie Deans, 
after she had been many weeks imprisoned, was at length about 
to be brought forward, and Mr. Middleburgh found leisure to 
inquire into the evidence concerning her. For this purpose, he 
chose a fine day for his walk towards her father’s house. 

The excursion into the country was somewhat distant, in 
the opinion of a burgess of those days, although many of the 
present inhabit suburban villas considerably beyond the spot 
to which we allude. Three-quarters of an hour’s walk, how- 
ever, even at a pace of magisterial gravity, conducted our 
benevolent office-bearer to the Crags of St. Leonard’s, and the 
humble mansion of David Deans. 

* See The Magistrates aud the Porteous Mob. Note 23. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


195 


The old man was seated on the deas, or turf-seat, at the 
end of his cottage, busied in mending his cart-harness with his 
own hands ; for in those days any sort of labour which required 
a little more skill than usual fell to the share of the goodman 
himself, and that even when he was well-to-pass in the world. 
With stern and austere gravity he persevered in his task, after 
having just raised his head to notice the advance of the stranger. 
It would have been impossible to have discovered, from his 
countenance and manner, the internal feelings of agony with 
which he contended. Mr. Middleburgh waited an instant, ex- 
pecting Deans would in some measure acknowledge his presence, 
and lead into conversation ; but, as he seemed determined to 
remain silent, he was himself obliged to speak first. 

‘ My name is Middleburgh — Mr. James Middleburgh, one of 
the present magistrates of the city of Edinburgh.’ 

‘ It may be sae,’ answered Deans, laconically, and without 
interrupting his labour. 

‘ You must understand,’ he continued, ‘ that the duty of a 
magistrate is sometimes an unpleasant one.’ 

‘ It may be sae,’ replied David ; ‘ I hae naething to say in 
the contrair ’ ; and he was again doggedly silent. 

‘ You must be aware,’ pursued the magistrate, ‘ that persons 
in my situation are often obliged to make painful and disagree- 
able inquiries of individuals, merely because it is their bounden 
duty.’ 

‘ It may be sae,’ again replied Deans ; ‘ I hae naething to 
say anent it, either the tae way or tlie t’other. But I do ken 
there was ance in a day a just and God-fearing magistracy in 
yon town o’ Edinburgh, that did not bear the sword in vain, 
but were a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to such as kept the 
path. In the glorious days of auld worthy faithfu’ Provost 
Dick,* when there was a true and faithfu’ General Assembly 
of the Kirk, walking hand in hand with the real noble Scottish- 
hearted barons, and with the magistrates of this and other 
towns, gentles, burgesses, and commons of all ranks, seeing 
with one eye, hearing with one ear, and upholding the ark with 
their united strength. And then folk might see men deliver up 
their silver to the state’s use, as if it had been as muckle sclate 
stanes. My father saw them toom the sacks of dollars out o’ 
Provost Dick’s window intill the carts that carried them to the 
army at Dunse Law ; and if ye winna believe his testimony, 
there is the window itsell still standing in the Luckenbooths — 
* See Sir William Dick of Braid. Note 24. 


196 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


I think it’s a claith-merchant’s booth the day * — at the aim 
stanchells, five doors abune Gossford’s Close. But now we 
haena sic spirit amang us ; we think mair about the warst 
wally-draigle in our aiii byre than about the blessing which the 
angel of the covenant gave to the Patriarch, even at Peniel and 
Mahanaim, or the binding obligation of our national vows ; and 
we wad rather gie a pund Scots to buy an unguent to clear 
our auld rannel- trees and our beds o’ the English bugs, as 
they ca’ them, than we wad gie a plack to rid the land of the 
swarm of Arminian caterpillars, Socinian pismires, and deistical 
Miss Katies, that have ascended out of the bottomless pit to 
plague this perverse, insidious, and lukewarm generation.’ 

It happened to Davie Deans on this occasion, as it has done 
to many other habitual orators, when once he became em- 
barked on his favourite subject, the stream of his own enthusi- 
asm carried him forward in spite of his mental distress, while 
his well -exercised memory supplied him amply with all the 
types and tropes of rhetoric peculiar to his sect and cause. 

Mr. Middleburgh contented himself with answering — ‘All 
this may be very true, my friend ; but, as you said just now, I 
have nothing to say to it at present, either one way or other. 
You have two daughters, I think, Mr. Deans ? ’ 

The old man winced, as one whose smarting sore is suddenly 
galled; but instantly composed himself, resumed the work 
which, in the heat of his declamation, he had laid down, and 
answered with sullen resolution, ‘Ae daughter, sir — only ane.’ 

‘ I understand you,’ said Mr. Middleburgh ; ‘ you have only 
one daughter here at home with you ; but this unfortunate girl 
who is a prisoner — she is, I think, your youngest daughter ? ’ 

The Presbyterian sternly raised his eyes. ‘ After the world, 
and according to the flesh, she is my daughter ; but when she 
became a child of Belial, and a company-keeper, and a trader 
ill guilt and iniquity, she ceased to be a bairn of mine.’ 

‘Alas, Mr. Deans,’ said Middleburgh, sitting down by him 
and endeavouring to take his hand, which the old man proudly 
withdrew, ‘ we are ourselves all sinners ; and the errors of our 
offspring, as they ought not to surprise us, being the portion 
which they derive of a common portion of corruption inherited 
through us, so they do not entitle us to cast them off because 
they have lost themselves.’ 

‘ Sir,’ said Deans, impatiently, ‘ I ken a’ that as weel as — I 

* I think so too ; but if the reader be curious, he may consult Mr. Chambers’s 
Traditions 0/ Edinburgh, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


197 


mean to say,’ lie resumed, checking the irritation he felt at 
being schooled — a discipline of the mind which those most 
ready to bestow it on others do themselves most reluctantly 
submit to receive — ‘ I mean to say, that what ye observe may 
be just and reasonable ; but I hae nae freedom to enter into 
my ain private affairs wi’ strangers. And now, in this great 
national emergency, when there’s the Porteous Act has come 
doun frae London, that is a deeper blow to this poor sinfu’ 
kingdom and suffering kirk than ony that has been heard of 
since the foul and fatal Test — at a time like this ’ 

‘But, goodman,’ interrupted Mr. Middleburgh, ‘3^u must 
think of your own household first, or else you are worse even 
than the infidels.’ 

‘ I tell ye. Bailie Middleburgh,’ retorted David Deans, ‘ if ye 
be a bailie, as there is little honour in being ane in these evil 
days— I tell ye, I heard the gracious Saunders Peden — I wotna 
whan it was ; but it was in killing time, when the plowers were 
drawing alang their furrows on the back of the Kirk of Scot- 
land — I heard him tell his hearers, gude and waled Christians 
they were too, that some o’ them wad greet mair for a bit 
drowned calf or stirk than for a’ the defections and oppressions 
of the day ; and that they were some o’ them thinking o’ ae 
thing, some o’ anither, and there was Lady Hundleslope think- 
ing o’ greeting Jock at the fireside ! And the lady confessed 
in my hearing that a drow of anxiety had come ower her for 
her son that she had left at hame weak of a decay.* And what 
wad he hae said of me, if I had ceased to think of the gude 

cause for a castaway — a It kills me to think of what she 

is ! ’ 

‘ But the life of your child, goodman — think of that ; if her 
fife could be saved,’ said Middleburgh. 

‘ Her life ! ’ exclaimed David. ‘ I wadna gie ane o’ my grey 
hairs for her life, if her gude name be gane. And yet,’ said he, 
relenting and retracting as he spoke, ‘ I wad make the niffer, 
Mr. Middleburgh — I wad gie a’ these grey hairs that she has 
brought to shame and sorrow — I wad gie the auld head they 
grow on, for her life, and that she might hae time to amend and 
return, for what hae the wicked beyond the breath of their 
nostrils? But I’ll never see her mair. No ! that — that I am 
determined in — I’ll never see her mair ! ’ His lips continued to 
move for a minute after his voice ceased to bo heard, as if he 
were repeating the same vow internally. 

* See Life of Pedm, p. 111. 


198 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ Well, sir,’ said Mr. Middleburgh, ‘ I speak to you as a man 
of sense ; if you would save your daughter’s life, you must use 
human means.’ 

‘ I understand what you mean ; hut Mr. Novit, who is the 
procurator and doer of an honourable person, the Laird of 
Dumbiedikes, is to do what carnal wisdom can do for her in the 
circumstances. Mysell am not clear to trinquet and traffic wd’ 
courts o’ justice, as they are now constituted ; I have a tender- 
ness and scruple in my mind anent them.’ 

‘ That is to say,’ said Middleburgh, ‘ that you are a Camer- 
onian, and do not acknowledge the authority of our courts of 
judicature, or present government?’ 

‘ Sir, under your favour,’ replied David, who was too proud 
of his own polemical knowledge to call himself the follower of 
any one, ‘ ye take me up before I fall down. I canna see why 
I suld be termed a Cameronian, especially now- that ye hae 
given the name of that famous and savoury sufferer, not only 
until a regimental band of souldiers, whereof I am told many 
can now curse, swear, and use profane language as fast as ever 
Richard Cameron could preach or pray, but also because ye 
have, in as far as it is in your power, rendered that martyr’s 
name vain and contemptible, by pipes, drums, and fifes, playing 
the vain carnal spring, called the Cameronian Rant, which too 
many professors of religion dance to — a practice maist unbecom- 
ing a professor to dance to any tune whatsoever, more especially 
promiscuously, that is, with the female sex.* A brutish fashion 
it is, whilk is the beginning of defection with many, as I may 
hae as muckle cause as maist folk to testify.’ 

‘Well, but, Mr. Deans,’ replied Mr. Middleburgh, ‘I only 
meant to say that you were a Cameronian, or MacMillanite, 
one of the society people, in short, who think it inconsistent to 
take oaths under a government where the Covenant is not 
ratified.’ 

‘ Sir,’ replied the controversialist, who forgot even his present 
distress in such discussions as these, ‘ you cannot fickle me sae 
easily as you do opine. I am not a MacMillanite, or a Russelite, 
or a Hamiltonian, or a Harleyite, or a Howdenite ; f I will be 
led by the nose by none ; I take my name as a Christian from 
no vessel of clay. I have my own principles and practice to 
answer for, and am an humble pleader for the gude auld cause 
in a legal way.’ 

* See note to Patrick Walker, 
t All various species of the great genus Cameronian. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


199 


‘ That is to say, Mr. Deans,’ said Middleburgh, ‘ that you are 
a Deanite^ and have opinions peculiar to yourself.’ 

‘ It may please you to say sae,’ said David Deans ; ‘ but I 
have maintained my testimony before as great folk, and in 
sharper times ; and though I will neither exalt myself nor pull 
down others, I wish every man and woman in this land had 
kept the true testimony, and the middle and straight path, as 
it were, on the ridge of a hill, where wind and water shears, 
avoiding right-hand snares and extremes and left-hand way- 
slidings, as weel as Johnny Dodds of Farthing’s Acre and ae 
man mair that shall be nameless.’ 

‘I suppose,’ replied the magistrate, ‘that is as much as to 
say, that Johnny Dodds of Farthing’s Acre and David Deans 
of St. Leonard’s constitute the only members of the true, real, 
unsophisticated Kirk of Scotland ? ’ 

‘God forbid that I suld make sic a vainglorious speech, 
when there are sae mony professing Christians ! ’ answered 
David; ‘but this I maun say, that all men act according to 
their gifts and their grace, sae that it is nae marvel that ’ 

‘ This is all very fine,’ interrupted Mr. Middleburgh ; ‘ but I 
have no time to spend in hearing it. The matter in hand is 
this — I have directed a citation to be lodged in your daughter’s 
hands. If she appears on the day of trial and gives evidence, 
there is reason to hope she may save her sister’s life ; if, from 
any constrained scruples about The legality of her performing 
the office of an affectionate sister and a good subject, by 
appearing in a court held under the authority of the law and 
government, you become the means of deterring her from the 
discharge of this duty, I must say, though the truth may sound 
harsh in your ears, that you, who gave life to this unhappy 
girl, will become the means of her losing it by a premature and 
violent death.’ 

So saying Mr. Middleburgh turned to leave him. 

‘ Bide a wee — bide a wee, Mr. Middleburgh,’ said Deans, in 
great perplexity and distress of mind ; but the bailie, who was 
probably sensible that protracted discussion might diminish the 
effect of his best and most forcible argument, took a hasty leave, 
and declined entering farther into the controversy. 

Deans sunk down upon his seat, stunned with a variety of 
conflicting emotions. It had been a great source of controversy 
among those holding his opinions in religious matters, how far 
the government which succeeded the Revolution could be, with- 
out sin, acknowledged by true Presbyterians, seeing that it did 


200 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


not recognise the great national testimony of the Solemn League 
and Covenant. And latterly, those agreeing in this general 
doctrine, and assuming the sounding title of the anti -Popish, 
anti-Prelatic, anti-Erastian, anti -Sectarian, true Presbyterian 
remnant, were divided into many petty sects among them- 
selves, even as to the extent of submission to the existing 
laws and rulers which constituted such an acknowledgment as 
amounted to sin. 

At a very stormy and tumultuous meeting, held in 1682, to 
discuss these important and delicate points, the testimonies of 
the faithful few were found utterly inconsistent with each 
other.* The place where this conference took place was re- 
markably well adapted for such an assembly. It was a wild 
and very sequestered dell in Tweeddale, surrounded by high 
hills, and far remote from human habitation. A small river, 
or rather a mountain torrent, called the Talla, breaks down the 
glen with great fury, dashing successively over a number of 
small cascades, which has procured the spot the name of Talla 
Linns. Here the leaders among the scattered adherents to the 
Covenant, men who, in their banishment from human society, 
and in the recollection of the severities to which they had been 
exposed, had become at once sullen in their tempers and fan- 
tastic in their religious opinions, met with arms in their hands, 
and by the side of the torrent discussed, with a turbulence 
which the noise of the stream could not drown, points of con- 
troversy as empty and unsubstantial as its foam. 

It was the fixed judgment of most of the meeting, that all 
payment of cess or tribute to the existing government was 
utterly unlawful, and a sacrificing to idols. About other im- 
positions and degrees of submission there were various opinions ; 
and perhaps it is the best illustration of the spirit of those 
military fathers of the church to say, that while all allowed it 
was impious to pay the cess employed for maintaining the 
standing army and militia, there was a fierce controversy on the 
lawfulness of paying the duties levied at ports and bridges, for 
maintaining roads and other necessary purposes; that there 
were some who, repugnant to these imposts for turnpikes and 
pontages, were nevertheless free in conscience to make payment 
of the usual freight at public ferries, and that a person of 
exceeding and punctilious zeal, James Russel, one of the 
slayers of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, had given his testi- 
mony with great warmth even against this last faint shade 
* See Meeting at Talla Linns. Note 25. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


201 


of subjection to constituted authority. This ardent and en- 
lightened person and his followers had also great scruples about 
the lawfulness of bestowing the ordinary names upon the days of 
the week and the months of the year, which savoured in their 
nostrils so strongly of paganism, that at length they arrived at 
the conclusion that they who owned such names as Monday, 
Tuesday, January, February, and so forth, ‘served themselves 
heirs to the same, if not greater, punishment than had been 
denounced against the idolaters of old.’ 

David Deans had been present on this memorable occasion, 
although too young to be a speaker among the polemical com- 
batants. His brain, however, had been thoroughly heated by 
the noise, clamour, and metaphysical ingenuity of the discussion, 
and it was a controversy to which his mind had often returned ; 
and though he carefully disguised his vacillation from others, 
and perhaps from himself, he had never been able to come to 
any precise line of decision on the subject. In fact, his natural 
sense had acted as a counterpoise to his controversial zeal. He 
was by no means pleased wdth the quiet and indifferent manner 
in which King William’s government slurred over the errors of 
the times, when, far from restoring the Presbyterian Kirk to its 
former supremacy, they passed an act of oblivion even to those 
who had been its persecutors, and bestowed on many of them 
titles, favours, and employments. When, in the first General 
Assembly which succeeded the Revolution, an overture was 
made for the revival of the League and Covenant, it was with 
horror that Douce David heard the proposal eluded by the men 
of carnal wit and policy, as he called them, as being inapplicable 
to the present times, and not falling under the modern model 
of the church. The reign of Queen Anne had increased his 
conviction that the Revolution government was not one of the 
true Presbyterian complexion. But then, more sensible than 
the bigots of his sect, he did not confound the moderation and 
tolerance of these two reigns with the active tyranny and 
oppression exercised in those of Charles II. and James II. The 
Presbyterian form of religion, though deprived of the weight 
formerly attached to its sentences of excommunication, and 
compelled to tolerate the co-existence of Episcopacy, and of sects 
of various descriptions, was still the National Church ^ and 
though the glory of the second temple was far inferior to that 
which had flourished from 1639 till the battle of Dunbar, still 
it was a structure that, wanting the strength and the terrors, 
retained at least the form and symmetry, of the original model. 


202 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Then came the insurrection in 1715, and David Deans’s horror 
for the revival of the popish and prelatical faction reconciled 
him greatly to the government of King George, although he 
grieved that that monarch might be suspected of a leaning unto 
Erastianism. In short, moved by so many different considera- 
tions, he had shifted his ground at different times concerning 
the degree of freedom which he felt in adopting any act of im- 
mediate acknowledgment or submission to the present govern- 
ment, which, however mild and paternal, was still uncovenanted ; 
and now he felt himself called upon by the most powerful 
motive conceivable to authorise his daughter’s giving testimony 
in a court of justice, which all who have been since called Camer- 
onians accounted a step of lamentable and direct defection. The 
voice of nature, however, exclaimed loud in his bosom against 
the dictates of fanaticism ; and his imagination, fertile in the 
solution of polemical difficulties, devised an expedient for ex- 
tricating himself from the fearful dilemma, in which he saw, 
on the one side, a falling off from principle, and, on the other, 
a scene from which a father’s thoughts could not but turn in 
shuddering horror. 

‘ I have been constant and unchanged in my testimony,’ said 
David Deans ; ‘ but then who has said it of me, that I have 
judged my neighbour over closely, because he hath had more 
freedom in his walk than I have found in mine ? I never was 
a separatist, nor for quarrelling with tender souls about mint, 
cummin, or other the lesser tithes. My daughter Jean may 
have a light in this subject that is hid fi-ae my auld een ; it is 
laid on her conscience, and not on mine. If she hath freedom 
to gang before this judicatory, and hold up her hand for this 
poor castaway, surely I will not say she steppeth over her 

bounds ; and if not ’ He paused in his mental argument, 

while a pang of unutterable anguish convulsed his features, yet, 
shaking it off, he firmly resumed the strain of his reasoning — 
‘ And IP NOT, God forbid that .she should go into defection at 
bidding of mine ! I wunna fret the tender conscience of one 
bairn — no, not to save the life of the other.’ 

A Roman would have devoted his daughter to death from 
different feelings and motives, but not upon a more heroic 
principle of duty. 


CHAPTER XIX 


To man, in this his trial state. 

The privilege is given, 

When tost by tides of human fate. 

To anchor fast on heaven. 

Watts’s Hymiis. 

It was with a firm step that Deans sought his daughter’s apart- 
ment, determined to leave her to the light of her own conscience 
in the dubious point of casuistry in which he supposed her to 
be placed. 

The little room had been the sleeping -apartment of both 
sisters, and there still stood there a small occasional bed which 
had been made for Effie’s accommodation, when, complaining 
of illness, she had declined to share, as in happier times, her 
sister’s pillow. The eyes of Deans rested involuntarily, on 
entering the room, upon this little couch, with its dark green 
coarse curtains, and the ideas connected with it rose so thick 
upon his soul as almost to incapacitate him from opening his 
errand to his daughter. Her occupation broke the ice. He 
found her gazing on a slip of paper, which contained a citation 
to her to appear as a witness upon her sister’s trial in behalf of 
the accused. For the worthy magistrate, determined to omit no 
chance of doing Effie justice, and to leave her sister no apology 
for not giving the evidence which she was supposed to possess, 
had caused the ordinary citation, or suhpcena, of the Scottish 
criminal court, to be served upon her by an ofiicer during his 
conference with David. 

This precaution was so far favourable to Deans, that it saved 
him the pain of entering upon a formal explanation with his 
daughter ; he only said, with a hollow and tremulous voice, ‘ I 
perceive ye are aware of the matter.’ 

‘ 0 father, we are cruelly sted between God’s laws and man’s 
laws. What shall we do ? What can we do ? ’ 

Jeanie, it must be observed, had no hesitation whatever about 


204 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


the mere act of appearing in a court of justice. She might have 
heard the point discussed by her father more than once ; but 
we have already noticed, that she was accustomed to listen with 
reverence to much which she was incapable of understanding, 
and that subtle arguments of casuistry found her a patient but 
unedified hearer. Upon receiving the citation, therefore, her 
thoughts did not turn upon the chimerical scruples Avhich 
alarmed her father’s mind, but to the language which had been 
held to her by the stranger at Muschat’s Cairn. In a word, she 
never doubted but she was to be dragged forward into the court 
of justice, in order to place her in the cruel position of either 
sacrificing her sister by telling the truth, or committing perjury 
in order to save her life. And so strongly did her thoughts run 
in this channel, that she applied her father’s words, ‘Ye are 
aware of the matter,’ to his acquaintance with the advice that 
had been so fearfully enforced upon her. She looked up with 
anxious surprise, not unmingled with a cast of horror, which 
his next words, as she interpreted and applied them, were not 
qualified to remove. 

‘ Daughter,’ said David, ‘ it has ever been my mind, that in 
things of ane doubtful and controversial nature ilk Christian’s 
conscience suld be his ain guide. Wherefore descend into your- 
self, try your ain mind with sufficiency of soul exercise, and as 
you sail finally find yourself clear to do in this matter, even 
so be it.’ 

‘But, father,’ said Jeanie, whose mind revolted at the con- 
struction which she naturally put upon his language, ‘ can this 
— THIS be a doubtful or controversial matter? Mind, father, 
the ninth command — “ Thou shalt not bear false witness against 
thy neighbour.” ’ 

David Deans paused ; for, still applying her speech to his 
preconceived difficulties, it seemed to him as if a woman and 
a sister, was scarce entitled to be scrupulous upon this occa- 
sion, where he, a man, exercised in the testimonies of that testi- 
fying period, had given indirect countenance to her following 
what must have been the natural dictates of her own feelings. 
But he kept firm his purpose, until his eyes involuntarily rested 
upon the little settle-bed, and recalled the form of the child of 
his old age, as she sate upon it, pale, emaciated, and broken- 
hearted. His mind, as the picture arose before him, involun- 
tarily conceived, and his tongue involuntarily uttered — but in a 
tone how different from his usual dogmatical precision ! — argu- 
ments for the course of conduct likely to ensure his child’s safety. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


205 


‘ Daughter/ he said, ‘ I did not say that your path was 
free from stumbling ; and, questionless, this act may be in 
the opinion of some a transgression, since he who beareth 
witness unlawfully, and against his conscience, doth in some 
sort bear false witness against his neighbour. Yet in matters 
of compliance, the guilt lieth not in the compliance sae muckle 
as in the mind and conscience of him that doth comply ; and, 
therefore, although my testimony hath not been spared upon 
public defections, I haena felt freedom to separate mysell from 
the communion of many who have been clear to hear those 
ministers who have taken the fatal indulgence, because they 
might get good of them, though I could not.’ 

When David had proceeded thus far, his conscience reproved 
him, that he might be indirectly undermining the purity of his 
daughter’s faith, and smoothing the way for her falling off from 
strictness of principle. He, therefore, suddenly stopped, and 
changed histone: ‘Jeanie, I perceive that our vile affections 
— so I call them in respect of doing the will of our Father — 
cling too heavily to me in this hour of trying sorrow, to per- 
mit me to keep sight of my ain duty, or to airt you to yours. 
I will speak nae mair anent this over-trying matter. Jeanie, 
if ye can, wi’ God and gude conscience, speak in favour of this 

puir unhappy (here his voice faltered). She is your sister 

in the flesh : worthless and castaway as she is, she is the 
daughter of a saint in heaven, that was a mother to you, 
Jeanie, in place of your ain; but if ye arena free in conscience 
to speak for her in the court of judicature, follow your con- 
science, Jeanie, and let God’s will be done.’ After this adjura- 
tion he left the apartment, and his daughter remained in a 
state of great distress and perplexity. 

It would have been no small addition to the sorrows of David 
Deans, even in this extremity of suffering, had he known that 
his daughter was applying the casuistical arguments which he 
had been using, not in the sense of a permission to follow her 
own opinion on a dubious and disputed point of controversy, but 
rather as an encouragement to transgress one of those divine 
commandments which Christians of all sects and denomina- 
tions unite in holding most sacred. 

‘ Can this be ? ’ said Jeanie, as the door closed on her father — 
‘can these be his words that I have heard, or has the Enemy taken 
his voice and features to give weight unto the counsel which 
causeth to perish ? A sister’s life, and a father pointing out how 
to save it ! 0 God deliver me ! this is a fearfu’ temptation.’ 


206 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Roaming from thought to thought, she at one time imagined 
her father understood the ninth commandment literally, as pro- 
hibiting false witness against our neighbour, without extending 
the denunciation against falsehood uttered in favour of the 
criminal. But her clear and unsophisticated power of discrim- 
inating between good and evil instantly rejected an interpret- 
ation so limited and so unworthy of the Author of the law. 
She remained in a state of the most agitating terror and un- 
certainty — afraid to communicate her thoughts freely to her 
father, lest she should draw forth an opinion with which she 
could not comply ; wrung with distress on her sister’s account, 
rendered the more acute by reflecting that the means of saving 
her were in her power, but were such as her conscience pro- 
hibited her from using; tossed, in short, like a vessel in an 
open roadstead during a storm, and, like that vessel, resting 
on one only sure cable and anchor — faith in Providence, and 
a resolution to discharge her duty. 

Butler’s affection and strong sense of religion would have 
been her principal support in these distressing circumstances, 
but he was still under restraint, which did not permit him to 
come to St. Leonard’s Crags ; and her distresses were 'of a 
nature which, with her indifferent habits of scholarship, she 
found it impossible to express in writing. She was therefore 
compelled to trust for guidance to her own unassisted sense of 
Avhat was right or wrong. 

It was not the least of Jeanie’s distresses that, although she 
hoped and believed her sister to be innocent, she had not the 
means of receiving that assurance from her own mouth. 

The double-dealing of Ratcliffe in the matter of Robertson 
had not prevented his being rewarded, as double-dealers fre- 
quently have been, with favour and preferment. Sharpitlaw, 
who found in him something of a kindred genius, had been 
intercessor in his behalf with the magistrates, and the circum- 
stance of his having voluntarily remained in the prison, when 
the doors were forced by the mob, would have made it a hard 
measure to take the life which he had such easy means of 
saving. He received a full pardon ; and soon afterwards, James 
Ratcliffe, the greatest thief and housebreaker in Scotland, was, 
upon the faith, perhaps, of an ancient proverb, selected as a 
person to be entrusted with the custody of other delinquents. 

When Ratcliffe was thus placed in a confidential situation, 
he was repeatedly applied to by the sapient Saddletree and 
others who took some interest in the Deans family, to procure 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


207 


an interview between the sisters; but the magistrates, who 
were extremely anxious for the apprehension of Robertson, had 
given strict orders to the contrary, hoping that, by keeping 
them separate, they might, from the one or the other, extract 
some information respecting that fugitive. On this subject 
Jeanie had nothing to tell them. She informed Mr. Middle- 
burgh that she knew nothing of Robertson, except having met 
him that night by appointment to give her some advice respect- 
ing her sister’s concern, the purport of Avhich, she said, was 
betwixt God and her conscience. Of his motions, purposes, or 
plans, past, present, or future, she knew nothing, and so had 
nothing to communicate. 

Effie was equally silent, though from a different cause. It 
was in vain that they offered a commutation and alleviation 
of her punishment, and even a free pardon, if she would confess 
what she knew of her lover. She answered only with tears ; 
unless, when at times driven into pettish sulkiness by the 
persecution of the interrogators, she made them abrupt and 
disrespectful answers. 

At length, after her trial had been delaj’^ed for many weeks, 
in hopes she might be induced to speak out on a subject 
infinitely more interesting to the magistracy than her own 
guilt or innocence, their patience was worn out, and even Mr. 
Middleburgh finding no ear lent to further intercession in her 
behalf, the day was fixed for the trial to proceed. 

It was now, and not sooner, that Sharpitlaw, recollecting his 
promise to Effie Deans, or rather being dinned into compliance 
by the unceasing remonstrances of Mrs. Saddletree, who was 
his next-door neighbour, and who declared ‘it was heathen cruelty 
to keep the twa broken-hearted creatures separate,’ issued the 
important mandate permitting them to see each other. 

On the evening which preceded the eventful day of trial, 
Jeanie was permitted to see her sister — an awful interview, and 
occurring at a most distressing crisis. This, however, formed 
a part of the bitter cup which she was doomed to drink, to 
atone for crimes and follies to which she had no accession ; and 
at twelve o’clock noon, being the time appointed for admission 
to the jail, she went to meet, for the first time for several 
months, her guilty, erring, and most miserable sister, in that 
abode of guilt, error, and utter misery. 


CHAPTER XX 


Sweet sister, let me live ! 

What sin you do to save a brother’s life, 

Nature dispenses with the deed so far. 

That it becomes a virtue. 

Measure for Measure. 

Jeanie Deans was admitted into the jail by Ratcliffe. This 
fellow, as void of shame as of honesty, as he opened the now 
trebly secm’ed door, asked her, with a leer which made her 
shudder, ‘ whether she remembered him % ’ 

A half-pronounced and timid ‘ No ’ was her answer. 

‘ What ! not remember moonlight, and Muschat’s Cairn, and 
Rob and Rat ? ’ said he, with the same sneer. ‘ Your memory 
needs redding up, my jo.’ 

If Jeanie’s distresses had admitted of aggravation, it must 
have been to find her sister under the charge of such a profli- 
gate as this man. He was not, indeed, without something of 
good to balance so much that was evil in his character and 
habits. In his misdemeanours he had never been bloodthirsty 
or cruel ; and in his present occupation he had shown himself, 
in a certain degree, accessible to touches of humanity. But 
these good qualities were unknown to Jeanie, who, remembering 
the scene at Muschat’s Cairn, could scarce find voice to acquaint 
him that she had an order from Bailie Middleburgh, permitting 
her to see her sister. 

‘ I ken that fu’ weel, my bonny doo ; mair by token, I have 
a special charge to stay in the ward with you a’ the time ye are 
thegither.’ 

‘Must that be saeT asked Jeanie, with an imploring 
voice. 

‘ Hout, ay, hinny,’ replied the turnkey ; ‘ and what the waur 
will you and your tittie be of Jim Ratcliffe hearing what ye hae 
to say to ilk other % Deil a word ye’ll say that will gar him ken 
your kittle sex better than he kens them already ; and another 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


209 


thing is, that, if ye dinna speak o’ breaking the tolbooth, deil a 
word will I tell ower, either to do ye good or ill.’ 

Thus saying, RatclifFe marshalled her the way to the apart- 
ment where Effie was confined. 

Shame, fear, and grief had contended for mastery in the poor 
prisoner’s bosom during the whole morning, while she had looked 
forward to this meeting ; but when the door opened, all gave 
way to a confused and strange feeling that had a tinge of joy in 
it, as, throwing herself on her sister’s neck, she ejaculated, ‘ My 
dear Jeanie ! my dear Jeanie! it’s lang since I hae seen ye.’ 
Jeanie returned the embrace with an earnestness that partook 
almost of rapture, but it was only a flitting emotion, like a sun- 
beam unexpectedly penetrating betwixt the clouds of a tempest, 
and obscured almost as soon as visible. The sisters walked 
together to the side of the pallet bed, and sate down side 
by side, took hold of each other’s hands, and looked each 
otlier in the face, but without speaking a word. In this 
posture they remained for a minute, while the gleam of joy 
gradually faded from their features, and gave way to the 
most intense expression, first of melancholy, and then of agony, 
till, throwing themselves again into each other’s arms, they, 
to use the language of Scripture, lifted up their voices and 
wept bitterly. 

Even the hard-hearted turnkey, who had spent his life in 
scenes calculated to stifle both conscience and feeling, could not 
witness this scene without a touch of human sympathy. It was 
shown in a trifling action, but which had more delicacy in it 
than seemed to belong to Ratcliffe’s character and station. The 
unglazed window of the misemble chamber was open, and the 
beams of a bright sun fell right upon the bed where the sufferers 
were seated. With a gentleness that had something of rever- 
ence in it, RatclifFe partly closed the shutter, and seemed thus 
to throw a veil over a scene so sorrowful. 

‘Ye are ill, Effie,’ were the first words Jeanie could utter — 
‘ye are very ill.’ 

‘0, what wad I gie to be ten times waur, Jeanie !’ was the 
j-eply — ‘ what wad I gie to be cauld dead afore the ten o’clock bell 
the morn ! And our father — but I am his bairn nae langer now ! 
0, I hae nae friend left in the warld ! 0 that I were lying dead 

at my mother’s side in Newbattle kirkyard ! ’ 

‘Hout, lassie,’ said RatclifFe, willing to show the interest 
which he absolutely felt, ‘ dinna be sae dooms down-hearted as 
a’ that ; there’s mony a tod hunted that’s no killed. Advocate 

14 


VII 


210 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Langtaie has brought folk through waur snappers than a’ this, 
and there’s no a cleverer agent than Nichil Novit e’er drew a 
bill of suspension. Hanged or unhanged, they are weel afF has 
sic an agent and counsel ; ane’s sure o’ fair play. Ye are a 
bonny lass, too, an ye wad busk up your cockernonie a bit ; and 
a bonny lass will find favour wi’ judge and jury, when they 
would strap up a grewsome carle like me for the fifteenth part 
of a flea’s hide and tallow, d — n them.’ 

To this homely strain of consolation the mourners returned 
no answer ; indeed, they were so much lost in their own sorrows 
as to have become insensible of RatclifFe’s presence. ‘ 0, Effie,’ 
said her elder sister, ‘ how could you conceal your situation from 
me ? 0, woman, had I deserved this at your hand ? Had ye 

spoke but ae word — sorry we might hae been, and shamed we 
might hae been, but this awfu’ dispensation had never come 
ower us.’ 

‘ And what gude wad that hae dune V answered the prisoner. 

‘ Na, na, Jeanie, a’ was ower when ance I forgot what I promised 
when I faulded down the leaf of my Bible. See,’ she said, pro- 
ducing the sacred volume, ‘ the book opens aye at the place o’ 
itsell. 0 see, Jeanie, what a fearfu’ scripture ! ’ 

J eanie took her sister’s Bible, and found that the fatal mark 
was made at this impressive text in the book of Job : ‘He hath 
stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. 
He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone. And 
mine hope hath he removed like a tree.’ 

‘ Isna that ower true a doctrine ? ’ said the prisoner : ‘ isna my 
crown, my honour removed ? And what am I but a poor wasted, 
wan-thriven tree, dug up by the roots and flung out to waste in 
the highway, that man and beast may tread it under foot ? I 
thought o’ the bonny bit thorn that our father rooted out o’ 
the yard last May, when it had a’ the flush o’ blossoms on it ; 
and then it lay in the court till the beasts had trod them a’ to 
pieces wi’ their feet. I little thought, when I was wae for the 
bit silly green bush and its flowers, that I was to gang the same 
gate mysell.’ 

‘ 0, if ye had spoken a word,’ again sobbed Jeanie — ‘ if I were 
free to swear that ye had said but ae word of how it stude wi’ 
ye, they couldna hae touched your life this day.’ 

‘ Could they na ? ’ said Effie, with something like awakened 
interest, for life is dear even to those who feel it as a burden. 
‘ Wha tauld ye that, Jeanie ^ ’ 

‘ It was ane that kenn’d what he was saying weel eneugh,’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


211 


replied Jeanie, who had a natural reluctance at mentioning even 
the name of her sister’s seducer. 

‘ Wha was it ? ^ I conjure ye to tell me,’ said Effie, seating 
herself upright. Wha could tak interest in sic a cast-bye as I 
am now ? Was it — was it him ? ’ 

‘ Hout,’ said Ratcliffe, ‘ what signifies keeping the poor lassie 
in a swither % I’se uphaud it’s been Robertson that learned ye 
that doctrine when ye saw him at Muschat’s Cairn.’ 

‘ Was it him ? ’ said Effie, catching eagerly at his words 

‘ was it him, J eanie, indeed ? 0, I see it was him, poor lad ; 

and I was thinking his heart was as hard as the nether mill- 
stane ; and him in sic danger on his ain part — poor George ! ’ 

Somewhat indignant at this burst of tender feeling towards 
the author of her misery, Jeanie could not help exclaiming — 
‘ 0, Effie, how can ye speak that gate of sic a man as that ? ’ 

‘ We maun forgie our enemies, ye ken,’ said poor Effie, with 
a timid look and a subdued voice ; for her conscience told her 
what a different character the feelings with which she still 
regarded her seducer bore, compared with the Christian charity 
under which she attempted to veil it. 

‘ And ye hae suffered a’ this for him, and ye can think of loving 
him still ? ’ said her sister, in a voice betwixt pity and blame. 

‘ Love him ! ’ answered Effie. ‘ If I hadna loved as woman 
seldom loves, I hadna been within these wa’s this day; and 
trow ye that love sic as mine is lightly forgotten ? Na, na, 
ye may hew down the tree, but ye canna change its bend. 
And 0, Jeanie, if ye wad do good to me at this moment, tell 
me every word that he said, and whether he was sorry for poor 
Effie or no ! ’ 

‘What needs I tell ye ony thing about it,’ said Jeanie. ‘Ye 
may be sure he had ower muckle to do to save himsell, to speak 
lang or muckle about ony body beside.’ 

‘That’s no true, Jeanie, though a saunt had said it,’ replied 
Effie, with a sparkle of her former lively and irritable temper. 
‘ But ye dinna ken, though I do, how far he pat his life in 
venture to save mine.’ And looking at Ratcliffe, she checked 
herself and was silent. 

‘ I fancy,’ said Ratcliffe, with one of his familiar sneers, ‘ the 
lassie thinks that naebody has een but hersell. Didna I see 
when Gentle Geordie was seeking to get other folk out of the 
tolbooth forbye Jock Porteous % But ye are of my mind, hinny : 
better sit and rue than flit and rue. Ye needna look in my 
face sae amazed. I ken mair things than that, maybe.’ 


212 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ 0 my God ! my God ! ’ said Effie, springing up and throwing 
herself down on her knees before him. ‘ D’ye ken where they 
hae putten my bairn ? 0 my bairn ! my bairn ! the poor sack- 

less innocent new-born wee ane — bone of my bone, and flesh of 
my flesh ! 0 man, if ye wad e’er deserve a portion in heaven, or 

a broken-hearted creature’s blessing upon earth, tell me where 
they hae put my bairn — the sign of my shame, and the partner 
of my sufering ! tell me wha has taen’t away, or what they hae 
dune wi’t ! ’ 

‘Hout tout,’ said the turnkey, endeavoimng to extricate 
himself from the firm grasp with which she held him, ‘ that’s 
taking me at my word wi’ a witness. Bairn, quo’ she ? How 
the deil suld I ken ony thing of your bairn, huzzy'? Ye maun 
ask that of auld Meg Murdockson, if ye dinna ken ower muckle 
about it yourselL’ 

As his answer destroyed the wild and vague hope which had 
suddenly gleamed upon her, the unhappy prisoner let go her 
hold of his coat, and fell with her face on the pavement of the 
apartment in a strong convulsion fit. 

Jeanie Deans possessed, with her excellently clear under- 
standing, the concomitant advantage of promptitude of spirit, 
even in the extremity of distress. 

She did not suffer herself to be overcome by her own feelings 
of exquisite sorrow, but instantly applied herself to her sister’s 
relief, with the readiest remedies which circumstances afforded ; 
and which, to do Ratcliffe justice, he showed himself anxious 
to suggest, and alert in procuring. He had even the delicacy to 
withdraw to the farthest corner of the room, so as to render 
his official attendance upon them as little intrusive as possible, 
when Effie was composed enough again to resume her conference 
with her sister. 

The prisoner once more, in the most earnest and broken 
tones, conjured Jeanie to tell her the particulars of the confer- 
ence with Robertson, and Jeanie felt it was impossible to refuse 
her this gratification. 

‘Do ye mind,’ she said, ‘Effie, when ye were in the fever 
before we left \yoodend, and how angry your mother, that’s 
now in a better place, was wi’ me for gieing ye milk and water 
to drink, because ye grat for it? Ye were a bairn then, and 
ye are a woman now, and should ken better than ask what 
canna luit hurt you. But come weal or woe, I canna refuse 
ye ony thing that ye ask me wi’ the tear in your ee.’ 

Again Effie threw herself into her arms, and kissed her cheek 


the HEARt OR MIDLOTHIAN 


213 

and forehead, murmuring, ‘ 0 if ye keuu’d how kiig it is since I 
heard his name mentioned ! if ye hut kenn’d how rnuckle good 
it ,does me but to ken ony tiling o’ him that’s like goodness or 
kindness, ye wadna wonder that I wish to hear o’ him ! ’ 

Jeanie sighed, and commenced her narrative of all that had 
passed betwixt Robertson and her, making it as brief as pos- 
sible. Effie listened in breathless anxiety, holding her sister’s 
hand in hers, and keeping her eye fixed upon her face, as if 
devouring every word she uttered. The interjections of ‘ Poor 
fellow!’ — ‘ Poor George 1 ’ which escaped in whispers, and be- 
twixt sighs, were the only sounds with which she interrupted 
the story. When it was finished she made a long pause. 

‘ And this was his advice ? ’ wei'e the first words she uttered. 

‘Just sic as I hae tell’d ye,’ replied her sister. 

‘And he wanted you to say something to yon folks that 
wad save my young life ? ’ 

‘He wanted,’ answered Jeanie, ‘that I suld be man-sworn.’ 

‘And you tauld him,’ said Effie, - that ye wadna hear o’ 
coming between me and the death that I am to die, and me 
no aughteen year auld yet ? ’ 

‘I told him,’ replied Jeanie, who now trembled at the turn 
which her sister’s reflections seemed about to take, ‘that I 
daured na swear to an untruth.’ 

‘ And what d’ye ca’ an untmth 1 ’ said Effie, again showing a 
touch of her former spirit. ‘ Ye are rnuckle to blame, lass, if je 
think a mother would, or could, murder her ain bairn. Murder 1 
I wad hae laid down my life just to see a blink o’ its ee I ’ 

‘I do believe,’ said Jeanie, ‘that ye are as innocent of sic a 
purpose as the new-born babe itselL’ 

‘ I am glad ye do me that justice,’ said Effie, haughtily ; ‘ it’s 
whiles the faut of very good folk like you, Jeanie, that they 
think a’ the rest of the warld are as bad as the Avarst tempta- 
tions can make them.’ 

‘ I dinna deserve this frae ye, Effie,’ said her sister, sobbing, 
and feeling at once the injustice of the reproach and compassion 
for the state of mind which dictated it. 

‘Maybe no, sister,’ said Effie. ‘But ye are angry because I love 
Robertson. How can I help loving him, that loves me better 
than body and soul baith ? Here he put his life in a nifier, to 
break the prison to let me out ; and sure am I, had it stood wi’ 
him as it stands wi’ you ’ Here she paused and was silent. 

‘ 0, if it stude wi’ me to save ye Avi’ risk of wy life I ’ said 
Jeanie. . . 


214 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘Ay, lass,’ said her sister, ‘that’s lightly said, but no sae 
lightly credited, frae ane that winna ware a word for me ; and 
if it be a wrang word, ye’ll hae time eneugh to repent o’t.’ 

‘ But that word is a grievous sin, and it’s a deeper offence 
when it’s a sin wilfully and presumptuously committed.’ 

‘Weel, weel, Jeanie,’ said Effie, ‘I mind a’ about the sins o’ 
presumption in the questions ; we’ll speak nae mair about this 
matter, and ye may save your breath to say your carritch ; and 
for me. I’ll soon hae nae breath to waste on ony body.’ 

‘ I must needs say,’ interposed Batcliffe, ‘ that it’s d — d hard, 
when three words of your mouth woidd give the girl the chance 
to nick Moll Blood, that you make such scrupling about rapping 
to them. D — n me, if they would take me, if I would not rap 
to all Whatd’yecallum’s — Hyssop’s Fables — for her life ; I am 
us’d to’t, b — t me, for less matters. Why, I have smacked calf- 
skin fifty times in England for a keg of brandy.’ 

‘ Never speak mair o’t,’ said the prisoner. ‘ It’s just as weel 
as it is ; and gude day, sister, ye keep Mr. Ratcliffe waiting 

on. Ye’ll come back and see me, I reckon, before ’ here she 

stopped, and became deadly pale. 

‘And are we to part in this way,’ said Jeanie, ‘and you in 
sic deadly peril ? 0, Effie, look but up and say what ye wad 

hae me do, and I could find in my heart amaist to say that I 
wad do’t.’ 

‘No, Jeanie,’ replied her sister, after an effort, ‘I am better 
minded now. At my best, I was never half sae gude as ye 
were, and what for suld you begin to mak yoursell waur to 
save me, now that I am no worth saving ? God knows, that 
in my sober mind I wadna wuss ony living creature to do a 
wrang thing to save my life. I might have fled frae this 
tolbooth on that awfu’ night wi’ ane wad hae carried me through 
the warld, and friended me, and fended for me. But I said to 
them, let life gang when gude fame is gane before it. But this 
lang imprisonment has broken my spirit, and I am whiles sair 
left to mysell, and then I wad gie the Indian mines of gold and 
diamonds just for life and breath ; for I think, Jeanie, I have 
such roving fits as I used to hae in the fever ; but instead of 
the fiery een, and wolves, and Widow Butler’s bullsegg, that I 
used to see spelling up on my bed, I am thinking now about a 
high black gibbet, and me standing up, and such seas of faces 
all looking up at poor Effie Deans, and asking if it be her that 
George Robertson used to call the Lily of St. Leonard’s. And 
then they stretch out their faces, and make mouths, and girn at 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


215 


me, and whichever way I look, I see a face laughing like Meg 
Murdockson, when she tauld me I had seen the last of my wean. 
God preserve us, Jeanie, that carline has a fearsome face ! ’ 
She clapped her hands before her eyes as she uttered this 
exclamation, as if to secure herself against seeing the fearful 
object she had alluded to. 

J eanie Deans remained with her sister for two hours, during 
which she endeavoured, if possible, to extract something from 
her that might be serviceable in her exculpation. But she had 
nothing to say beyond what she had declared on her first ex- 
amination, with the purport of which the reader will be made 
acquainted in proper time and place. ‘ They wadna believe her,’ 
she said, ‘ and she had naething mair to tell them.’ 

At length Ratcliffe, though reluctantly, informed the sisters 
that there was a necessity that they shovdd part. ‘Mr. Novit,’ 
he said, ‘ was to see the prisoner, and maybe Mr. Langtale too. 
Langtale likes to look at a bonny lass, whether in prison or out 
o’ prison.’ 

Reluctantly, therefore, and slowly, after many a tear and 
many an embrace, Jeanie retired from the apartment, and heard 
its jarring bolts turned upon the dear being from whom she 
was separated. Somewhat familiarised now even with her rude 
conductor, she offered him a small present in money, with a re- 
quest he would do what he could for her sister’s accommodation. 
To her surprise, Ratcliffe declined the fee. ‘ I wasna bloody 
when I was on the pad,’ he said, ‘and I winna be greedy — that 
is, beyond what’s right and reasonable — now that I am in the 
lock. Keep the siller ; and for civility, your sister sail hae sic 
as I can bestow. But I hope you’ll think better on it, and rap 
an oath for her ; deil a hair ill there is in it, if ye are rapping 
again the crown. I kenn’d a worthy minister, as gude a man, 
bating the deed they deposed him for, as ever ye heard claver 
in a pu’pit, that rapped to a hogshead of pigtail tobacco, just 
for as muckle as filled his spleuchan. But maybe ye are keep- 
ing your ain counsel ; weel, weel, there’s nae harm in that. As 
for your sister, I’se see that she gets her meat clean and warm, 
and I’ll try to gar her lie down and take a sleep after dinner, 
for deil a ee she’ll close the night. I hae gude experience of 
these matters. The first night is aye the warst o’t. I hae 
never heard o’ ane that sleepit the night afore trial, but of 
mony a ane that sleepit as sound as a tap the night before their 
necks were straughted. And it’s nae wonder : the warst may 
be tholed when it’s kenn’d. Better a finger aff as aye wagging.’ 


CHAPTER XXI 


Yet though tlioii mayst be dragg’d in scorn 
To yonder ignominious tree, 

Thou shalt not want one faithful friend 
To share the cruel fates’ decree. 

Jemmy Dawsmi. 

After spending the greater part of the morning in his devotions, 
for his benevolent neighbours had kindly insisted upon dis- 
charging his task of ordinary labour, David Deans entered tlie 
apartment when the breakfast meal was prepared. His eyes 
were involuntarily cast down, for he was afraid to look at Jeanie, 
uncertain as he was whether she might feel herself at liberty, 
with a good conscience, to attend the Court of Justiciary that 
day, to give the evidence which he understood that she possessed 
in order to her sister’s exculpation. At length, after a minute 
of apprehensive hesitation, he looked at her dress to discover 
whether it seemed to be in her contemplation to go abroad that 
morning. Her apparel was neat and plain, but such as conveyed 
no exact intimation of her intentions to go abroad. She had 
exchanged her usual garb for morning labour for one something 
inferior to that with which, as her best, she was wont to dress 
herself for church, or any more rare occasion of going into 
society. Her sense taught her, that it was respectful to be 
decent in her apparel on s\ich an occasion, while her feelings 
induced her to lay aside the use of the very few and simple 
personal ornaments which, on other occasions, she permitted 
herself to wear. So that there occurred nothing in her external 
appearance which could mark out to her father, with anything 
like certainty, her intentions on this occasion. 

The preparations for their humble meal were that morning 
made in vain. The father and daughter sat, each assuming 
the appearance of eating when the other’s eyes were turned to 
them, and desisting from the effort with disgust when the 
affectionate imposture seemed no longer necessary. 


the heart of Midlothian 


217 


At length these moments of constraint were removed. The 
sound of St. Giles’s heavy toll announced the hour previous to 
the commencement of the trial; Jeanie arose, and, with a 
degree of composure for which she herself could not account, 
assumed her plaid, and made her other preparations for a dis- 
tant walking. It Avas a strange contrast between the firmness 
of her demeanour and the vacillation and cruel uncertainty of 
purpose indicated in all her father’s motions; and one un- 
acquainted Avith both could scarcely liaA^e supposed that the 
former Avas, in her ordinary habits of life, a docile, quiet, gentle, 
and even timid country maiden, Avhile her father, Avith a mind 
naturally proud and strong, and supported by religious opinions 
of a stern, stoical, and unyielding character, had in his time 
Aindergone and Avithstood the most seA’^ere hardships and the 
most imminent peril, Avithout depression of spirit or subjugation 
of his constancy. The secret of this difference Avas, that Jeanie’s 
mind had already anticipated the line of conduct Avbich she 
must adopt, Avith all its natural and necessary consequences; 
Avhile her father, ignorant of every other circumstance, tor- 
mented himself Avith imagining what the one sister might say 
or SAvear, or Avhat effect her testimony might have upon the 
awful eA^ent of the trial. 

He watched his daughter Avith a faltering and indecisive 
look, until she looked back upon him Avith a look of unutterable 
anguish, as she Av^as about to leave the apartment. 

‘ My dear lassie,’ said he, ‘ I Avill ’ His action, hastily 

and confusedly searching for his Avorsted mittens and staff, 
shoAved his purpose of accompanying her, though his tongue 
failed distinctly to announce it. 

‘Father,’ said Jeanie, replying rather to his action than liis 
AA'ords, ‘ ye had better not.’ 

‘ In the strength of my God,’ ansAvered Deans, assuming 
firmness, ‘ I will go forth.’ 

And, taking his daughter’s arm under his, he began to Avalk 
from tlie door with a step so hasty that she was almost unable 
to keep up Avith him. A trifling circumstance, but Avhich 
marked the perturbed state of liis mind, checked his course. 
‘Your bonnet, father 'I ’ said Jeanie, aaJio observed he had come 
out Avith his grey hairs uncovered. He turned back Avith a 
slight blush on his cheek, being ashamed to have been de- 
tected in an omission Avhich indicated so much mental con- 
fusion, assumed his large blue Scottish bonnet, and Avith a step 
sloAver, but more composed, as if the circumstance had obliged 


218 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


him to summon up his resolution and collect his scattered ideas, 
again placed his daughter’s arm under his, and resumed the way 
to Edinburgh. 

The courts of justice were then, and are still, held in what 
is called the Parliament Close, or, according to modern phrase, 
the Parliament Square, and occupied the buildings intended 
for the accommodation of the Scottish Estates. This edifice, 
though in an imperfect and corrupted style of architecture, 
had then a grave, decent, and, as it were, a judicial aspect, 
which was at least entitled to respect from its antiquity ; for 
which venerable front, I observed, on my last occasional visit 
to the metropolis, that modern taste had substituted, at great 
apparent expense, a pile so utterly inconsistent with every 
monument of antiquity around, and in itself so clumsy at the 
same time and fantastic, that it may be likened to the decora- 
tions of Tom Errand, the porter, in the Trip to the Jubilee^ 
when he appears bedizened with the tawdry finery of Beau 
Clincher. Sed transeat cum cceteris errorihus. 

The small quadrangle, or close, if we may presume still 
to give it that appropriate though antiquated title, which 
at Litchfield, Salisbury, and elsewhere is properly applied 
to designate the inclosure adjacent to a cathedral, already 
evinced tokens of the fatal scene which was that day to be 
acted. The soldiers of the City Guard were on their posts, 
now enduring, and now mdely repelling with the butts of their 
muskets, the motley crew who thrust each other forward, to 
catch a glance at the unfortunate object of trial, as she should 
pass from the adjacent prison to the court in which her fate 
was to be determined. All must have occasionally observed, 
with disgust, the apathy with which the vulgar gaze on scenes 
of this nature, and how seldom, unless when their sympathies 
are called forth by some striking and extraordinary circum- 
stance, the crowd evince any interest deeper than that of 
callous, unthinking bustle and brutal curiosity. They laugh, 
jest, quarrel, and push each other to and fro, with the same un- 
feeling indifference as if they were assembled for some holiday 
sport, or to see an idle procession. Occasionally, however, this 
demeanour, so natural to the degraded populace of a large town, 
is exchanged for a temporary touch of human affections ; and 
so it chanced on the present occasion. 

When Deans and his daughter presented themselves in the 
close, and endeavoured to make their way forward to the 
door of the court-house, they became involved in the mob, 


THE HEART OE MIDLOTHIAN 


219 


and subject, of course, to their insolence. As Deans repelled 
with some force the rude pushes which he received on all 
sides, his figure and antiquated dress caught the attention of 
the rabble, who often show an intuitive sharpness in ascribing 
the proper character from external appearance. 

‘ Ye’re welcome, Whigs, 

Frae Bothwell Briggs,’ 

sung one fellow, for the mob of Edinburgh were at that time 
Jacobitically disposed, probably because that was the line of 
sentiment most diametrically opposite to existing authority. 

‘Mess David Williamson, 

Chosen of twenty, 

Ran up the pu’pit stair. 

And sang Killiecrankie,’ 

chanted a siren, whose profession might be guessed by her 
appearance. A tattered cadie or errand porter, whom David 
Deans had jostled in his attempt to extricate himself from the 
vicinity of these scorners, exclaimed in a strong north-country 
tone, ‘ Ta deil ding out her Cameronian een ! What gies her 
titles to dunch gentlemans about ? ’ 

‘Make room for the ruling elder,’ said yet another; ‘he 
comes to see a precious sister glorify God in the Grassmarket ! ’ 
‘Whisht ! shame’s in ye, sirs,’ said the voice of a man very 
loudly, which, as quickly sinking, said in a low, but distinct 
tone, ‘ It’s her father and sister.’ 

All fell back to make way for the sufferers ; and all, even 
the very rudest and most profligate, were struck with shame 
and silence. In the space thus abandoned to them by the 
mob. Deans stood, holding his daughter by the hand, and said 
to her, with a countenance strongly and sternly expressive of 
his internal emotion, ‘Ye hear with your ears, and ye see with 
your eyes, where and to whom the backslidings and defections 
of professors are ascribed by the scoffers. Not to themselves 
alone, but to the kirk of w^hich they are members, and to its 
blessed and invisible Head. Then, weel may we take wi’ 
patience our share and portion of this outspreading reproach.’ 

The man who had spoken, no other than our old friend 
Dumbiedikes, whose mouth, like that of the prophet’s ass, had 
been opened by the emergency of the case, now joined them, 
and, with his usual taciturnity, escorted them into the court- 
house. No opposition was offered to their entrance, either by 


220 


waverley Novels 


the guards or doorkeepers ; and it is even said that one of the 
latter refused a shilling of civility-money, tendered him by the 
Laird of Dumbiedikes, who was of opinion that ‘ siller wad mak 
a’ easy.’ But this last incident wants confirmation. 

Admitted within the precincts of the court-house, they found 
the usual number of busy office-bearers and idle loiterers, who 
attend on these scenes by choice or from duty. Burghers gaped 
and stared; young lawyers sauntered, sneered, and laughed, as in 
the pit of the theatre ; while others apart sat on a bench retired 
and reasoned highly, inter apices juris, on the doctrines of con- 
structive crime and the true import of the statute. The bench 
was prepared for the arrival of the judges. The jurors were in 
attendance. The crown counsel, employed in looking over their 
briefs and notes of evidence, looked grave and whispered with 
each other. They occupied one side of a large table placed 
beneath the bench ; on the other sat the advocates, whom the 
humanity of the Scottish law, in this particular more liberal 
than that of the sister country, not only permits, but enjoins, 
to appear and assist with their advice and skill all persons 
under trial. Mr. Nichil Novit was seen actively instructing 
the counsel for the panel — so the prisoner is called in Scottish 
law-phraseology — busy, bustling, and important. When they 
entered the court-room. Deans asked the Laird, in a tremulous 
whisper, ‘ Where will she sit T 

Dumbiedikes whispered Novit, who pointed to a vacant 
space at the bar, fronting the judges, and was about to conduct 
Deans towards it. 

‘ No ! ’ he said ; ‘ I cannot sit by her ; I cannot own her — 
not as yet, at least. I will keep out of her sight, and turn mine 
own eyes elsewhere ; better for us baith.’ 

Saddletree, whose repeated interference with the counsel had 
procured him one or two rebuffs, and a special request that he 
would concern himself with his own matters, now saw with 
pleasure an opportunity of playing the person of importance. 
He bustled up to the poor old man, and proceeded to exhibit 
his consequence, by securing, through his interest with the bar- 
keepers and macers, a seat for Deans in a situation where he 
was hidden from the general eye by the projecting corner of 
the bench. 

‘ It’s gude to have a friend at court,’ he said, continuing his 
heartless harangues to the passive auditor, who neither heard 
nor replied to them ; ‘ few folk but mysell could hae sorted ye 
out a seat like this. The Lords will be here incontinent, and 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


221 


proceed instanter to trial. They wunna fence the court as 
they do at the circuit. The High Court of Justiciary is 
aye fenced. But, Lord’s sake, what’s this o’t? Jeanie, ye are 
a cited witness. Macer, this lass is a witness ; she maun be 
inclosed ; she maun on nae account he at large. Mr. Nnvit, 
suldna Jeanie Deans be inclosed?’ 

Novit answered in the affirmative, and offered to conduct 
Jeanie to the apartment where, according to the scrupulous 
practice of the Scottish court, the witnesses remain in readiness 
to be called into court to give evidence ; and separated, at the 
same time, from all who might influence their testimony, or 
give them inforipation concerning that which was passing upon 
the trial. 

‘Is this necessary?’ said Jeanie, still reluctant to quit her 
father’s hand. 

‘ A matter of absolute needcessity,’ said Saddletree j ‘ wha 
ever heard of witnesses no being inclosed ? ’ 

‘ It is really a matter of necessity,’ said the younger coun- 
sellor retained for her sister; and Jeanie reluctantly followed 
the macer of the court to the place appointed. 

‘ This, Mr. Deans,’ said Saddletree, ‘ is ca’d sequestering a 
witness ; but it’s clean different, whilk maybe ye Avadna fund 
out o’ yoursell, frae sequestering ane’s estate or effects, as in 
cases of bankruptcy. I hae aften been sequestered as a Avitness, 
for the sheriff is in the use whiles to cry me in to witness the 
declarations at precognitions, and so is Mr. SharpitlaAv ; but I 
was ne’er like to be sequestered o’ land and gudes but ance, and 
that Avas lang syne, afore I v^as married. But Avhisht, Avhisht ! 
here’s the Court coming.’ 

As he spoke, the five Lords of Justiciary, in their long robes 
of scarlet, faced with white, and preceded by their mace-bearer, 
entered Avith the usual formalities, and took their places upon 
the bench of judgment. 

The audience rose to receive them ; and the bustle occasioned 
by their entrance was hardly composed, when a great noise and 
confusion of persons struggling, and forcibly endeavouring to 
enter at the doors of the court-room and of the galleries, an- 
nounced that the prisoner was about to be placed at the bar. 
This tumult takes place Avhen the doors, at first only opened to 
those either having right to be present or to the better and 
more qualified ranks, are at length laid open to all Avhose 
curiosity induces them to be present on the occasion. With in- 
flamed countenances and dishevelled dresses, struggling with and 


222 


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sometimes tumbling over each other, in rushed the rude multi- 
tude, while a few soldiers, forming, as it were, the centre of the 
tide, could scarce, with all their efforts, clear a passage for the 
prisoner to the place which she was to occupy. By the authority 
of the Court and the exertions of its officers, the tumult among 
the spectators was at .length appeased, and the unhappy girl 
brought forward, and placed betwixt two sentinels with drawn 
bayonets, as a prisoner at the bar, where she was to abide her 
deliverance for good or evil, according to the issue of her trial. 


CHAPTER XXII 


We have strict statutes, and most biting laws — 

The needful hits and curbs for headstrong steeds — 

Which, for these fourteen years, we have let sleep, 

Like to an o’ergrown lion in a cave 
• That goes not out to prey. 

Measure for Measure. 

‘Euphemia Deans,’ said the presiding Judge, in an accent 
in which pity Avas blended with dignity, ‘ stand up and listen 
to the criminal indictment now to be j)referred against you.’ 

The unhappy girl, who had been stupified by the confusion 
through which the guards had forced a passage, cast a bewildered 
look on the multitude of faces around her, which seemed to 
tapestry, as it were, the walls, in one broad slope from the 
ceiling to the floor, with human countenances, and instinctively 
obeyed a command which rung in her ears like the trumpet of 
the judgment-day. 

‘Put back your hair, Effie,’ said one of the macers. For 
her beautiful and abundant tresses of long fair hair, which, 
according to the costume of the country, unmarried women 
were not allowed to cover with any sort of cap, and which, alas ! 
Effie dared no longer confine with the snood or ribband which 
implied purity of maiden -fame, now hung unbound and dis- 
hevelled over her face, and almost concealed her features. On 
receiving this hint from the attendant, the unfortunate young 
woman, with a hasty, trembling, and apparently mechanical 
compliance, shaded back from her face her luxuriant locks, and 
showed to the whole court, excepting one individual, a counte- 
nance which, though pale and emaciated, was so lovely amid its 
agony that it called forth an universal murmur of compassion 
and sympathy. Apparently the expressive sound of human 
feeling recalled the poor girl from the stupor of fear which 
predominated at first over every other sensation, and awakened 
her to the no less painful sense of shame and exposure attached 


224 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


to her present situation. Her eye, which had at first glanced 
wildly around, was turned on the ground ; her cheek, at first 
so deadly pale, began gradually to be overspread with a faint 
blush, which increased so fast that, when in agony of shame 
she strove to conceal her face, her temples, her brow, her neck, 
and all that her slender fingers and small palms could not cover, 
became of the deepest crimson. 

All marked and were moved by these changes, excepting one. 
It was old Deans, who, motionless in his seat, and concealed, as 
we have said, by the corner of the bench, from seeing or being 
seen, did nevertheless keep his eyes firmly fixed on the ground, 
as if determined that, by no possibility whatever, would he be 
an ocular witness of the shame of his house. 

‘Ichabod!’ he said to himself — ^‘Ichabod! my glory is 
departed ! ’ 

While these reflections were passing through his mind, the 
indictment, which set forth in technical form the crime of which 
the panel stood accused, was read as usual, and the prisoner 
'was asked if she was Guilty or Not Guilty. 

‘Not guilty of my poor bairn’s death,’ said Effie Deans, in 
an accent corresponding in plaintive softness of tone to the 
beauty of her features, and which was not heard by the audience 
without emotion. 

The presiding Judge next directed the counsel to plead to 
the relevancy ; that is, to state on either part the arguments 
in point of law, and evidence in point of fact, against and in 
favour of the criminal, after which it is the form of the Court 
to pronounce a preliminary judgment, sending the cause to the 
cognizance of the jury or assize. 

The pounsel for the crown briefly stated the frequency of 
the crime of infanticide, which had given rise to the special 
statute under which the panel stood indicted. He mentioned 
the various instances, many of them marked with circumstances 
of atrocity, which had at length induced the King’s Advocate, 
though with great reluctance, to make the experiment, whether, 
by strictly enforcing the Act of Parliament which had been 
made to prevent such enormities, their occurrence might be 
prevented. ‘He expected,’ he said, ‘to be able to establish by 
witnesses, as well as by the declaration of the panel herself, 
that she was in the state described by the statute. According 
to his information, the panel had communicated her pregnancy 
to no one, nor did she allege in her own declaration that she 
had done so. This secrecy was the first requisite in support of 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


225 


the indictment. The same declaration admitted that she had 
borne a male child, in circumstances which gave but too much 
reason to believe it had died by the hands, or at least with the 
knowledge or consent, of the unhappy mother. It was not, 
however, necessary for him to bring positive proof that the 
panel was accessory to the murder, nay, nor even to prove that 
the child was murdered at all. It was sufficient to support the 
indictment, that it could not be found. According to the stern 
but necessary severity of this statute, she who should conceal 
her pregnancy, who should omit to call that assistance which is 
most necessary on such occasions, was held already to have 
meditated the death of her offspring, as an event most likely 
I to be the consequence of her culpable and cruel concealment. 
And if, under such circumstances, she could not alternatively 
show by proof that the infant had died a natural death, or 
produce it still in life, she must, under the construction of the 
law, be held to have murdered it, and suffer death accordingly.’ 

The counsel for the prisoner, Mr. Fairbrother, a man of 
I considerable fame in his profession, did not pretend directly to 
combat the arguments of the King’s Advocate. He began by 
' lamenting that his senior at the bar, Mr. Langtale, had been 
I suddenly called to the county of which he was sheriff, and that 
he had been applied to, on short warning, to give the panel his 
assistance in this interesting case. He had had little time, he 
I said, to make up for his inferiority to his learned brother by 
long and minute research ; and he was afraid he might give a 
specimen of his incapacity by being compelled to admit the 
; accuracy of the indictment under the statute. ‘ It was enough 
; for their Lordships,’ he observed, ‘ to know, that such was the 
law, and he admitted the Advocate had a right to call for the 
usual interlocutor of relevancy.’ But he stated, ‘ that when he 
came to establish his case by proof, he trusted to make out 
circumstances which would satisfactorily elide the charge in the 
libel. His client’s story was a short but most melancholy one. 
She was bred up in the strictest tenets of religion and virtue, 
the daughter of a worthy and conscientious person, who, in evil 
times, had established a character for courage and religion, by 
becoming a sufferer for conscience’ sake.’ 

David Deans gave a convulsive start at hearing himself thus 
mentioned, and then resumed the situation in which, with his 
face stooped against his hands, and both resting against the 
corner of the elevated bench on which the Judges sate, he 
had hitherto listened to the procedure in the trial. The 

IS 


VII 


226 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Whig lawyers seemed to be interested ; the Tories put up 
their lip. 

‘ Whatever may be our difference of opinion/ resumed the 
lawyer, whose business it was to carry his whole audience Avith 
him if possible, ‘ concerning the peculiar tenets of these people 
(here Deans groaned deeply), it is impossible to deny them the 
praise of sound, and even rigid, morals, or the merit of training 
up their children in the fear of God ; and yet it was the daughter 
of such a person Avhom a jury would shortly be called upon, 
in the absence of evidence, and upon mere presumptions, to 
convict of a crime more properly belonging to an heathen or a 
savage than to a Christian and civilised country. It was true,’ 
he admitted, ‘ that the excellent nurture and early instruction 
Avhich the poor girl had received had not been sufficient to 
preserve her from guilt and error. She had fallen a sacrifice 
to an inconsiderate affection for a young man of prepossessing 
manners, as he had been informed, but of a very dangerous 
and desperate character. She was seduced under promise of 
marriage — a promise which the fellow might have, perhaps, 
done her justice by keeping, had he not at that time been called 
upon by the laAv to atone for a crime, violent and desperate in 
itself, but which became the preface to another eventful history, 
every step of which was marked by blood and guilt, and the 
final termination of which had not even yet arrived. He be- 
lieved that no one would hear him without surprise, when he 
stated that the father of this infant now amissing, and said by 
the learned Advocate to have been murdered, was no other than 
the notorious George Robertson, the accomplice of Wilson, the 
hero of the memorable escape from the Tolbooth Church, and, 
as no one knew better than his learned friend the Advocate, the 
principal actor in the Porteous conspiracy.’ 

‘ I am sorry to interrupt a counsel in such a case as the 
present,’ said the presiding Judge ; ‘but I must remind the 
learned gentleman that he is travelling out of the case be- 
fore us.’ 

The counsel bowed, and resumed. ‘He only judged it 
necessary,’ he said, ‘to mention the name and situation of 
Robertson, because the circumstance in which that character 
was placed went a great Avay in accounting for the silence on 
which his Majesty’s counsel had laid so much weight, as afford- 
ing proof that his client proposed to alloAv no fair play for its 
life to the helpless being whom she was about to bring into 
the world. She had not announced to her friends that she had 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


227 


been seduced from the path of honour, and why had she not 
done so ? Because she expected daily to be restored to char- 
acter, by her seducer doing her that justice which she knew to 
be in his power, and believed to be in his inclination. Was it 
natural, was it reasonable, was it fair, to expect that she 
should, in the interim, become felo de se of her own character, 
and proclaim her frailty to the world, when she had every 
reason to expect that, by concealing it for a season, it might 
be veiled for ever? Was it not, on the contrary, pardonable 
that, in such an emergency, a young woman, in such a situation, 
should be found far from disposed to make a confidante of every 
prying gossip who, with sharp eyes and eager ears, pressed 
upon her for an explanation of suspicious circumstances, which 
females in the lower — he might say which females of all ranks 
are so alert in noticing, that they sometimes discover them 
where they do not exist? Was it strange, or was it criminal, 
that she should have repelled their inquisitive impertinence 
with petulant denials ? The sense and feeling of all who heard 
him would answer directly in the negative. But although his 
client had thus remained silent towards those to whom she was 
not called upon to communicate her situation — to whom,’ said 
the learned gentleman, ‘ I will add, it would have been unadvised 
and improper in her to have done so ; yet I trust I shall re- 
move this case most triumphantly from under the statute, and 
obtain the unfortunate young woman an honourable dismission 
from your Lordships’ bar, by showing that she did, in due time 
and place, and to a person most fit for such confidence, mention 
the calamitous circumstances in which she found herself. This 
occurred after Robertson’s conviction, and when he was lying 
in prison in expectation of the fate which his comrade Wilson 
afterwards suffered, and from which he himself so strangely 
escaped. It was then, when all hopes of having her honour 
repaired by wedlock vanished from her eyes — when an union 
with one in Robertson’s situation, if still practicable, might 
perhaps have been regarded rather as an addition to her dis- 
grace— it was then, that I trust to be able to prove that the 
prisoner communicated and consulted with her sister, a young 
woman several years older than herself, the daughter of her 
father, if I mistake not, by a former marriage, upon the perils 
and distress of her unhappy situation.’ 

‘If, indeed, you are able to instruct that point, Mr. Fair- 
brother,’ said the presiding Judge 

‘ If I am indeed able to instruct that point, my lord,’ re- 


228 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Slimed Mr. Fairbrother, ‘ I trust not only to serve my client, 
but to relieve your Lordships from that which I know you feel 
the most painful duty of your high office ; and to give all who 
now hear me the exquisite pleasure of beholding a creature so 
young, so ingenuous, and so beautiful as she that is now at the 
bar of your Lordships’ Court, dismissed from thence in safety 
and in honour.’ 

This address seemed to affect many of the audience, and was 
followed by a slight murmur of applause. Deans, as he heard 
his daughter’s beauty and innocent appearance appealed to, was 
involuntarily about to turn his eyes towards her ; but, recollect- 
ing himself, he bent them again on the ground with stubborn 
resolution. 

‘ Will not my learned brother on the other side of the bar,’ 
continued the advocate, after a short pause, ‘share in this 
general joy, since I know, while he discharges his duty in bring- 
ing an accused person here, no one rejoices more in their being 
freely and honourably sent Jience ? l^Iy learned brother shakes 
his head doubtfully, and lays his hand on the panel’s declara- 
tion. I understand him perfectly : he would insinuate that 
the facts now stated to your Lordships are inconsistent with the 
confession of Euphemia Deans herself. I need not remind your 
Lordships, that her present defence is no whit to be naiTowed 
within the bounds of her former confession ; and that it is not 
by any account which she may formerly have given of herself, 
but by what is now to be proved for or against her, that she 
must ultimately stand or fall. I am not under the necessity 
of accounting for her choosing to drop out of her declaration the 
circumstances of her confession to her sister. She might not 
be aware of its importance ; she might be afraid of implicating 
her sister; she might even have forgotten the circumstance 
entirely, in the terror and distress of mind incidental to the 
arrest of so young a creature on a charge so heinous. Any of 
these reasons are sufficient to account for her having suppressed 
the truth in this instance, at whatever risk to herself ; and I 
incline most to her erroneous fear of criminating her sister, 
because I observe she has had a similar tenderness towards her 
lover, however undeserved on his part, and has never once 
mentioned Robertson’s name from beginning to end of her 
declaration. 

‘But, my lords,’ continued Fairbrother, ‘I am aware the 
King’s Advocate will expect me to show that the proof I offer 
is consistent with other circumstances of the case which I do 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 229 

not and cannot deny. He will demand of me how Effie Deans’s 
confession to her sister, previous to her delivery, is reconcilable 
with the mystery of the birth — with the disappearance, perhaps 
the murder — for I will not deny a possibility which I cannot 
disprove — of the infant. My lords, the explanation of this is to 
be found in the placability, perchance I may say in the facility 
and pliability, of the female sex. The dulcis Amaryllidis 
ir(Ej as your Lordships well know, are easily appeased ; nor 
is it possible to conceive a woman so atrociously offended by 
the man whom she has loved, but what she will retain a 
fund of forgiveness upon which his penitence, whether real or 
affected, may draw largely, with a certainty that his bills will 
be answered. We can prove, by a letter produced in evidence,- 
that this villain Robertson, from the bottom of the dungeon 
whence he already probably meditated the escape which he 
afterwards accomplished by the assistance of his comrade, con- 
trived to exercise authority over the mind, and to direct the 
motions, of this unhappy girl. It was in compliance with his 
injunctions, expressed in that letter, that the panel was pre- 
vailed upon to alter the line of conduct which her own better 
thoughts had suggested ; and, instead of resorting, when her 
time of travail approached, to the protection of her own family, 
was induced to confide herself to the charge of some vile agent 
of this nefarious seducer, and by her conducted to one of those 
solitary and secret purlieus of villainy, which, to the shame of 
our police, still are suffered to exist in the suburbs of this city, 
where, with the assistance, and under the charge, of a person 
of her own sex, she bore a male child, under circumstances 
which added treble bitterness to the woe denounced against 
our original mother. What purpose Robertson had in all this, 
it is hard to tell or even to guess. He may have meant to 
marry the girl, for her father is a man of substance. But for 
the termination of the story, and the conduct of the woman 
whom he had placed about the person of Euphemia Deans, it is 
still more difficult to account. The unfortunate young woman 
was visited by the fever incidental to her situation. In this 
fever she appears to have been deceived by the person that 
Avaited on her, and, on recovering her senses, she found that 
she Avas childless in that abode of misery. Her infant had been 
carried off, perhaps for the worst purposes, by the wretch that 
Avaited on her. It may have been murdered for what I can 
tell.’ 

He Avas here interrupted by a piercing shriek, uttered by 


23C 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


the unfortunate prisoner. She was with difficulty brought to 
compose herself. Her counsel availed himself of the tragical 
interruption to close his pleading with effect. 

‘My lords,’ said he, ‘in that piteous cry you heard the 
eloquence of maternal affection, far surpassing the force of my 
poor words : Rachel weeping for her children ! Nature herself 
bears testimony in favour of the tenderness and acuteness of 
the prisoner’s parental feelings. I will not dishonour her plea 
by adding a word more.’ 

‘ Heard ye ever the like o’ that, Laird ? ’ said Saddletree to 
Dumbiedikes, when the counsel had ended his speech. ‘ There’s 
a chield can spin a muckle pirn out of a wee tait of tow ! Deil 
haet he kens mair about it than what’s in the declaration, and 
a surmise that Jeanie Deans suld hae been able to say some- 
thing about her sister’s situation, whilk surmise, Mr. Crossmy- 
loof says, rests on sma’ authority. And he’s cleckit this great 
muckle bird out o’ this wee egg ! He could wile the very 
flounders out o’ the Firth. What garr’d my father no send me 
to Utrecht? But whisht ! the Court is gaun to pronounce the 
interlocutor of relevancy.’ 

And accordingly the Judges, after a few words, recorded 
their judgment, which bore, that the indictment, if proved, was 
relevant to infer the pains of law ; and that the defence, that 
the panel had communicated her situation to her sister, was a 
relevant defence; and, finally, appointed the said indictment 
and defence to be submitted to the judgment of an assize. 


CHAPTER XXIII 

Most righteous judge ! a sentence. Come, prepare. 

Merchant of Venic6» 

It is by no means my intention to describe minutely the forms 
of a Scottish criminal trial, nor am I sure that I could draw up 
an account so intelligible and accurate as to abide the criticism 
of the gentlemen of the long robe. It is enough to say that 
the jury was impanelled, and the case proceeded. The prisoner 
was again required to plead to the charge, and she again re- 
plied, ‘ Not Guilty,’ in the same heart-thrilling tone as before. 

The crown counsel then called two or three female witnesses, 
by whose testimony it was established that Effie’s situation 
had been remarked by them, that they had taxed her with the 
fact, and that her answers had amounted to an angry and 
petulant denial of what they charged her with. But, as very 
frequently happens, the declaration of the panel or accused 
party herself was the evidence which bore hardest upon her 
case. 

In the event of these Tales ever finding their way across the 
Border, it may be proper to apprise the southern reader that 
it is the practice in Scotland, on apprehending a suspected 
person, to subject him to a judicial examination before a magis- 
trate. He is not compelled to answer any of the questions 
asked of him, but may remain silent if he sees it his interest to 
do so. But whatever answers he chooses to give are formally 
written down, and being subscribed by himself and the magis- 
trate, are produced against the accused in case of his being- 
brought to trial. It is true, that these declarations are not 
produced as being in themselves evidence properly so called, 
but only as adminicles of testimony, tending to corroborate 
what is considered as legal and proper evidence. Notwith- 
standing this nice distinction, however, introduced by lawyers 
to reconcile this procedure to their own general rule, that a 


232 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


man cannot be required to bear witness against himself, it 
nevertheless usually happens that these declarations becorue 
the means of condemning the accused, as it were, out of their 
own mouths. The prisoner, upon these previous examinations, 
has indeed the privilege of remaining silent if he pleases ; but 
every man necessarily feels that a refusal to answer natural and 
pertinent interrogatories, put by judicial authority, is in itself 
a strong proof of guilt, and will certainly lead to his being com- 
mitted to prison ; and few can renounce the hope of obtaining 
liberty by giving some specious account of themselves, and 
showing apparent frankness in explaining their motives and 
accounting for their conduct. It, therefore, seldom happens 
that the prisoner refuses to give a judicial declaration, in which, 
nevertheless, either by letting out too much of the truth, or by 
endeavouring to substitute a fictitious story, he almost always 
exposes himself to suspicion and to contradictions, which weigh 
heavily in the minds of the jury. 

The declaration of Effie Deaiis was uttered on other principles, 
and the following is a sketch of its contents, given in the 
judicial form in which they may still be found in the Books 
of Adjournal. 

The declarant admitted a criminal intrigue with an individual 
whose name she desired to conceal. ‘ Being interrogated, what 
her reason was for secrecy on this point ? She declared, that 
she had no right to blame that person’s conduct more than she 
did her own, and that she was willing to confess her own faults, 
but not to say anything which might criminate the absent. 
Interrogated, if she confessed her situation to any one, or made 
any preparation for her confinement ? Declares, she did not. 
And being interrogated, why she forbore to take steps which 
her situation so peremptorily required? Declares, she was 
ashamed to tell her friends, and she trusted the person she has 
mentioned would provide for her and the infant. Interrogated, 
if he did so ? Declares, that he did not do so personally ; but 
that it was not his fault, for that the declarant is convinced he 
would have laid down his life sooner than the bairn or she had 
come to harm. Interrogated, what prevented him from keeping 
his promise ? Declares, that it was impossible for him to do 
so, he being under trouble at the time, and declines farther 
answer to this question. Interrogated, where she was from the 
period she left her master, Mr. Saddletree’s family, until her 
appearance at her father’s, at St. Leonard’s, the day before she 
was apprehended ? Declares, she does not remember. And, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


233 


on the interrogatory being repeated, declares, she does not 
mind muckle about it, for she was very ill. On the question 
being again repeated, she declares, she will tell the truth, if it 
should be the undoing of her, so long as she is not asked to tell 
on other folk ; and admits, that she passed that interval of time 
in the lodging of a woman, an acquaintance of that person who 
had wished her to that place to be delivered, and that she was 
there delivered accordingly of a male child. Interrogated, 
what was the name of that person ? Declares and refuses to 
answer this question. Interrogated, where she lives ? Declares, 
she has no certainty, for that she was taken to the lodging 
aforesaid under cloud of night. Interrogated, if the lodging 
Avas in the city or suburbs ? Declares and refuses to answer 
that question. Interrogated, whether, when she left the house 
of Mr. Saddletree, she went up or down the street ? Declares 
and refuses to answer the question. Interrogated, whether 
she had ever seen the woman before she was wished to her, as 
she termed it, by the person whose name she refuses to answer 1 
Declares and replies, not to her knowledge. Interrogated, 
whether this woman was introduced to her by the said person 
verbally, or by word of mouth 1 Declares, she has no freedom 
to answer this question. Interrogated, if the child was alive 
when it was born ? Declares, that — God help her and it ! — it 
certainly was alive. InteiTogated, if it died a natural death 
after birth? Declares, not to her knowledge. Interrogated, 
where it now is ? Declares, she would give her right hand to 
ken, but that she never hopes to see mair than the banes of it. 
And being interrogated, why she supposes it is now dead ? the 
declarant wept bitterly, and made no answer. Interrogated, 
if the woman in whose lodging she was seemed to be a fit 
person to be with her in that situation ? Declares, she might 
be fit enough for skill, but that she was an hard-hearted bad 
woman. Interrogated, if there was any other person in the 
lodging excepting themselves two ? Declares, that she thinks 
there was another woman ; but her head was so carried with 
pain of body and trouble of mind that she minded her very 
little. Interrogated, when the child wSs taken away from her? 
Declared, that she fell in a fever, and was light-headed, and 
when she came to her own mind the woman told her the bairn 
was dead ; and that the declarant answered, if it was dead it 
had had foul play. That, thereupon, the woman was very sair 
on her, and gave her much ill language j and that the deponent 
was frightened, and crawled out of the house when her back 


2S4 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


was turned, and went home to St. Leonard’s Crags, as well as 
a woman in her condition dought. Interrogated, why she did 
not tell her story to her sister and father, and get force to 
search the house for her child, dead or alive ? Declares, it was 
her purpose to do so, but she had not time. Interrogated, why 
she now conceals the name of the woman, and the place of her 
abode ? The declarant remained silent for a time, and then 
said, that to do so could not repair the skaith that was done, 
but might be the occasion of more. Interrogated, whether she 
had herself, at any time, had any purpose of putting away the 
child by violence ? Declares, never ; so might God be merci- 
ful to her; and then again declares, never, when she was in 
her perfect senses ; but what bad thoughts the Enemy might 
put into her brain when she was out of herself, she cannot 
answer. And again solemnly interrogated, declares, that she 
would have been drawn with wild horses rather than have 
touched the bairn with an unmotherly hand. Interrogated, 
declares, that among the ill language the woman gave her, she 
did say sure enough that the declarant had hurt the bairn 
when she was in the brain-fever ; but that the declarant does 
not believe that she said this from any other cause than to 
frighten her, and make her be silent. Interrogated, what else 
the woman said to her? Declares, that when the declarant 
cried loud for her bairn, and was like to raise the neighbours, 
the woman threatened her, that they that could stop the wean’s 
skirling would stop hers, if she did not keep a’ the founder. 
And that this threat, with the manner of the woman, made the 
declarant conclude that the bairn’s life was gone, and her own 
in danger, for that the woman was a desperate bad woman, as 
the declarant judged, from the language she used. Interro- 
gated, declares, that the fever and delirium were brought on 
her by hearing bad news, suddenly told to her, but refuses to 
say what the said news related to. Interrogated, why she does 
not now communicate these particulars, which might, perhaps, 
enable the magistrate to ascertain whether the child is living 
or dead, and requested to observe, that her refusing to do so 
exposes her own life, and leaves the child in bad hands, as 
also, that her present refusal to answer on such points is incon- 
sistent with her alleged intention to make a clean breast to her 
sister? Declares, that she kens the bairn is now dead, or, if 
living, there is one that will look after it ; that for her own 
living or dying, she is in God’s hands, who knows her innocence 
of harming her bairn with her will or knowledge ; and that she 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


286 


has altered her resolution of speaking out, which she enter- 
tained when she left the woman’s lodging, on account of a 
matter w’hich she has since learned. And declares, in general, 
that she is wearied, and will answer no more questions at this 
time.’ 

Upon a subsequent examination, Euphemia Deans adhered 
to the declaration she had formerly made, with this addition, 
that a paper found in her trunk being shown to her, she admitted 
that it contained the credentials in consequence of which she 
resigned herself to the conduct of the woman at whose lodgings 
she was delivered of the child. Its tenor ran thus : — 

‘Dearest Effie, 

‘ I have gotten the means to send to you by a woman 
who is well qualified to assist you in your approaching streight ; 
she is not what I could wish her, but I cannot do better for 
you in my present condition. I am obliged to trust to her in 
this present calamity, for myself and you too. I hope for the 
best, though I am now in a sore pinch ; yet thought is free. I 
think Handie Dandie and I may queer the stiller for all that is 
come and gone. You will be angry for me waiting this to my 
little Cameronian Lily ; but if I can but live to be a comfort to 
you, and a father to your baby, you will have plenty of time 
to scold. Once more, let none know your counsel. My life 
depends on this hag, d — n her ; she is both deep and dangerous, 
but she has more wiles and wit than ever were in a beldam’s 
head, and has cause to be true to me. Farewell, my Lily. 
Do not droop on my account ; in a week I will be yours, or 
no more my owm.’ 

Then followed a postscript. ‘ If they must truss me, I will 
repent of nothing so much, even at the last hard pinch, as of 
the injury I have done my Lily.’ 

Effie refused to say from whom she had received this letter, 
but enough of the story was now known to ascertain that it 
came from Robertson ; and from the date it appeared to have 
been written about the time when Andrew Wilson, called for 
a nickname Handie Dandie, and he were meditating their first 
abortive attempt to escape, which miscarried in the manner 
mentioned in the beginning of this history. 

The evidence of the crown being concluded, the counsel for 
the prisoner began to lead a proof in her defence. The first 


236 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


witnesses were examined upon the girl’s character. All gave 
her an excellent one, but none with more feeling than worthy 
Mrs. Saddletree, who, with the tears on her cheeks, declared, 
that she could not have had a higher opinion of Effie Deans, 
nor a more sincere regard for her, if she had been her own 
daughter. All present gave the honest woman credit for her 
goodness of heart, excepting her husband, who whispered to 
Dumbiedikes, ‘ That Nichil Novit of yours is but a raw hand 
at leading evidence. I’m thinking. What signified his bring- 
ing a woman here to snotter and snivel, and bather their Lord- . 
ships ? He should hae ceeted me, sir, and I should hae gien ; 
them sic a screed o’ testimony, they shouldna hae touched a 
hair o’ her head.’ 

‘Hadna ye better get up and try’t yet?’ said the Laird. 

‘ I’ll mak a sign to Novit.’ i 

‘ Na, na,’ said Saddletree, ‘ thank ye for naething, neighbour : i 
that would be ultroneous evidence, and I ken what belangs 
to that; but Nichil Novit suld hae had me ceeted dehito 
tempore.^ And wiping his mouth with his silk handkerchief 
with great importance, he resumed the port and manner of an 
edified and intelligent auditor. 

Mr. Fairbrother now premised, in a few words, ‘that he 
meant to bring forward his most important witness, upon whose 
evidence the cause must in a great measure depend. What his 
client was, they had learned from the preceding witnesses ; and 
so far as general character, given in the most forcible terms, 
and even with tears, could interest every one in her fate, she 
had already gained that advantage. It was necessary, he ad- 
mitted, that he should produce more positive testimony of her 
innocence than what arose out of general character, and this 
he undertook to do by the mouth of the person to whom she 
had communicated her situation — by the mouth of her natural 
counsellor and guardian — her sister. Macer, call into court 
Jean or Jeanie Deans, daughter of David Deans, cow-feeder, 
at St. Leonard’s Crags.’ 

When he uttered these "words, the poor prisoner instantly 
started up and stretched herself half-way over the bar, towards 
the side at which her sister was to enter. And when, slowly 
following the officer, the witness advanced to the foot of 
the table, Effie, with the whole expression of her countenance 
altered from that of confused shame and dismay to an eager, 
imploring, and almost ecstatic earnestness of entreaty, with 
outstretched hands, hair streaming back, eyes raised eagerly 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


237 


to her sister’s face, and glistening through tears, exclaimed, in 
a tone which went through the heart of all who heard her — ‘ 0 
Jeanie — Jeanie, save me — save me ! ’ 

With a different feeling, yet equally appropriated to his 
proud and self-dependent character, old Deans drew himself 
back still farther under the cover of the bench ; so that when 
Jeanie, as she entered the court, cast a timid glance towards 
the place at which she had left him seated, his venerable figure 
was no longer visible. He sate down on the other side of 
Dumbiedikes, wrung his hand hard, and whispered, ‘ Ah, Laird, 
this is warst of a’ — if I can but win ower this part ! I feel my 
head unco diz 2 ;y ; but my Master is strong in His servant’s 
weakness.’ After a moment’s mental prayer, he again started 
up, as if impatient of continuing in any one posture, and gradu- 
ally edged himself forward towards the place he had just 
quitted. 

Jeanie in the meantime had advanced to the bottom of the 
table, when, unable to resist the impulse of affection, she 
suddenly extended her hand to her sister. Effie was just 
within the distance that she could seize it with both hers, 
press it to her mouth, cover it with kisses, and bathe it in 
tears, wdth the fond devotion that a Catholic would pay to a 
guardian saint descended for his safety; while Jeanie, hiding 
her own face with her other hand, wept bitterly. The sight 
would have moved a heart of stone, much more of flesh and 
blood. Many of the spectators shed tears, and it was some 
time before the presiding Judge himself could so far subdue his 
emotion as to request the witness to compose herself, and the 
prisoner to forbear those marks of eager affection, which, how- 
ever natural, could not be permitted at that time and in that 
presence. 

The solemn oath — Hhe truth to tell, and no truth to conceal, 
as far as she knew or should be asked,’ was then administered 
by the Judge ‘in the name of God, and as the witness should 
answer to God at the great day of judgment ’ ; an awful adjura- 
tion, which seldom fails to make impression even on the most 
hardened characters, and to strike with fear even the most 
upright. Jeanie, educated in deep and devout reverence for 
the name and attributes of the Deity, was, by the solemnity of 
a direct appeal to His person and justice, awed, but at the same 
time elevated above all considerations save those which she 
could, with a clear conscience, call Him to witness. She repeated 
the form in a low and reverent, but distinct, tone of voice, after 


238 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


the Judge, to whom, and not to any inferior officer of the court, 
the task is assigned in Scotland of directing the witness in that 
solemn appeal which is the sanction of his testimony. 

When the Judge had finished the established form, he added, 
in a feeling, but yet a monitory, tone, an advice which the 
circumstances appeared to him to call for. 

‘Young woman,’ these were his words, ‘you come before this 
Court in circumstances which it would be worse than cruel not 
to pity and to sympathise with. Yet it is my duty to tell you, 
that the truth, whatever its consequences may be — the truth 
is what you owe to your country, and to that God whose word 
is truth, and whose name you have now invoked. Use your 
own time in answering th- questions that gentleman (pointing 
to the counsel) shall put to you. But remember, that what 
you may be tempted to say beyond what is the actual truth, 
you must answer both here and hereafter.’ 

The usual questions were then put to her : — Whether any 
one had instructed her what evidence she had to deliver? 
Whether any one had given or promised her any good deed, 
hire, or reward for her testimony? Whether she had any 
malice or ill-will at his Majesty’s Advocate, being the party 
against whom she was cited as a witness ? To which questions 
she successively answered by a quiet negative. But their tenor 
gave great scandal and offence to her father, who was not aware 
that they are put to every witness as a matter of form. 

‘Na, na,’ he exclaimed, loud enough to be heard, ‘my bairn 
is no like the widow of Tekoah : nae man has putten words 
into her mouth.’ 

One of the Judges, better acquainted, perhaps, with the Boohs 
of Adjournal than with the Book of Samuel, was disposed to 
make some instant inquiry after- this widow of Tekoah, who, 
as he construed the matter, had been tampering with the evi- 
dence. But the presiding Judge, better versed in Scripture 
history, whispered to his learned brother the necessary explana- 
tion ; and the pause occasioned by this mistake had the good 
effect of giving Jeanie Deans time to collect her spirits for the 
painful task she had to perform. 

Fairbrother, whose practice and intelligence were consider- 
able, saw the necessity of letting the witness compose herself. 
In his heart he suspected that she came to bear false witness in 
her sister’s cause. 

‘ But that is her own affair,’ thought Fairbrother ; ‘ and it is 
my business to see that she has plenty of time to regain com- 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


239 


posure, and to deliver her evidence, be it true or be it false, 
valeat qtiantumJ 

Accordingly, he commenced his interrogatories with un- 
interesting questions, which admitted of instant reply. 

‘ You are, I think, the sister of the prisoner ? ’ 

‘Yes, sir.’ 

‘Not the full sister, however?’ 

‘No, sir; we are by different mothers. 

‘ True ; and you are, I think, several years older than your 
sister ? ’ 

‘Yes, sir,’ etc. 

After the advocate had conceived that, by these preliminary 
and unimportant questions, he had familiarised the witness with 
the situation in which she stood, he asked, ‘ whether she had 
not remarked her sister’s state of health to be altered, during 
the latter part of the term when she had lived with Mrs. Saddle- 
tree ? ’ 

Jeanie answered in the affirmative. 

‘ And she told you the cause of it, my dear, I suppose ? ’ said 
Fairbrother, in an easy, and, as one may say, an inductive sort 
of tone. 

‘ I am sorry to interrupt my brother,’ said the Crown Coun- 
sel, rising, ‘but I am in your Lordships’ judgment, whether 
this be not a leading question ? ’ 

‘ If this point is to be debated,’ said the presiding Judge, 
‘the witness must be removed.’ 

For the Scottish lawyers regard with a sacred and scrupulous 
horror every question so shaped by the counsel examining as 
to convey to a witness the least intimation of the nature of the 
answer which is desired from him. These scruples, though 
founded on an excellent principle, are sometimes carried to an 
absurd pitch of nicety, especially as it is generally easy for a 
lawyer who has his wits about him to elude the objection. 
Fairbrother did so in the present case. 

‘ It is not necessary to waste the time of the Court, my lord ; 
since the King’s Counsel thinks it worth while to object to the 
form of my question, I will shape it otherwise. Pray, young 
woman, did you ask your sister any question when you observed 
her looking unwell ? Take courage — speak out.’ 

‘I asked her,’ replied Jeanie, ‘what ailed her.’ 

‘ Very well — take your own time — and what was the answer 
she made ?’ continued Mr. Fairbrother. 

Jeanie was silent, and looked deadly pale. It was not that 


240 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


she at any one instant entertained an idea of the possibility of 
prevarication : it was the natural hesitation to extinguish the 
last spark of hope that remained for her sister. 

‘ Take courage, young woman,’ said Fairbrother. ‘ I asked 
what your sister said ailed her when you inquired h ’ 

‘ Nothing,’ answered Jeanie, with a faint voice, which was 
yet heard distinctly in the most distant corner of the court- 
room, — -such an awful and profound silence had been preserved 
during the anxious interval which had interposed betwixt the 
lawyer’s question and the answer of the witness. 

Fairbrother’s countenance fell ; but with that readj presence 
of mind which is as useful in civil as in military emergencies, 
he immediately rallied. ‘Nothing? True ; you mean nothing 
at first ; but when you asked her again, did she not tell you 
what ailed her ? ’ 

The question was put in a tone meant to make her compre- 
hend the importance of her answer, had she not been already 
aware of it. The ice w'as broken, however, and with less pause 
than at first, she now replied — ‘ Alack ! alack ! she never 
breathed word to me about it.’ 

A deep groan passed through the Court. It was echoed by 
one deeper and more agonised from the unfortunate father. 
The hope, to which unconsciously, and in spite of himself, he 
had still secretly clung, had now dissolved, and the venerable 
old man fell forward senseless on the floor of the court-house, 
with his head at the foot of his terrified daughter. The unfor- 
“ tunate prisoner, with impotent passion, strove with the guards 
betwixt whom she was placed. ‘ Let me gang to my father ! 
I will gang to him — I ivill gang to him; he is dead — he is 
killed ; I hae killed him ! ’ she repeated in frenzied tones of 
grief, which those who heard them did not speedily forget. 

Even in this moment of agony and general confusion, Jeanie 
did not lose that superiority which a deep and firm mind assures 
to its possessor under the most trying circumstances. 

‘ He is my father — he is our father,’ she mildly repeated to 
those who endeavoured to separate them, as she stooped, 
shaded aside his grey hairs, and began assiduously to chafe his 
temples. 

The Judge, after repeatedly wiping his eyes, gave directions 
that they should be conducted into a neighbouring apartment, 
and carefully attended. The prisoner, as her father was borne 
from the court, and her sister slowly followed, pursued them 
with her eyes so earnestly fixed, as if they would have start^ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


241 


from their sockets. But when they were no longer visible, she 
seemed to find, in her despairing and deserted state, a courage 
which she had not yet exhibited. 

‘ The bitterness of it is now past,’ she said, and then boldly 
addressed the Court. ‘ My lords, if it is your pleasure to gang 
on wi’ this matter, the weariest day will hae its end at last.’ 

The Judge, who, much to his honour, had shared deeply in 
the general sympathy, was surprised at being recalled to his 
duty by the prisoner. He collected himself, and requested to 
know if the panel’s counsel had more evidence to produce. 
Fairbroth^r replied, with an air of dejection, that his proof was 
concluded. 

The King’s Counsel addressed the jury for the crown. He 
said in few words, that no one could be more concerned than 
he was for the distressing scene Avhich they had just witnessed. 
But it was the necessary consequence of great crimes to bring 
distress and ruin upon all connected with the perpetrators. He 
briefly reviewed the proof, in which he showed that all the 
circumstances of the case concurred with those required by the 
act under which the unfortunate prisoner was tried : that the 
counsel for the panel had totally failed in proving that Euphemia 
Deans had communicated her situation to her sister ; that, re- 
specting her previous good character, he was sorry to observe, 
that it was females who possessed the world’s good report, and 
to whom it was justly valuable, who were most strongly 
tempted, by shame and fear of the world’s censure, to the crime 
of infanticide; that the child was murdered, he professed to 
entertain no doubt. The vacillating and inconsistent declara- 
tion of the prisoner herself, marked as it was by numerous 
refusals to speak the truth on subjects when, according to her 
own story, it would have been natural, as well as advantageous, 
to have been candid — even this imperfect declaration left no 
doubt in his mind as to the fate of the unhappy infant. Neither 
could he doubt that the panel was a partner in this guilt. Who 
else had an interest in a deed so inhuman? Surely neither 
Robertson, nor Robertson’s agent, in whose house she was 
delivered, had the least temptation to commit such a crime, 
unless upon her account, with her connivance, and for the sake 
of saving her reputation. But it was not required of him by 
the law that he should bring precise proof of the murder, or of 
the prisoner’s accession to it. It was the very purpose of the 
statute to substitute a certain chain of presumptive evidence 
in place of a probation, which, in such cases, it was peculiarly 

i6 


VII 


242 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


difficult to obtain. The jury might peruse the statute itself, 
and they had also the libel and interlocutor of relevancy to 
direct them in point of law. He put it to the conscience of the 
jury, that under both he was entitled to a verdict of Guilty. 

The charge of Fairbrother was much cramped by his having 
failed in the proof which he expected to lead. But he fought 
his losing cause with courage and constancy. He ventured to 
arraign the severity of the statute under which the young, 
woman was tried. ‘ In all other cases,’ he said, ‘ the first thing 
required of the criminal prosecutor was, to prove unequivocally 
that the crime libelled had actually been committed, which 
lawyers called proving the corpus delicti. But this statute, 
made doubtless with the best intentions, and under the impulse 
of a just horror for the unnatural crime of infanticide, run the 
risk of itself occasioning the worst of murders, the death of an 
innocent person, to atone for a supposed crime which may never 
have been committed by any one. He was so far from acknow- 
ledging the alleged probability of the child’s violent death, that 
he could not even allow that there was evidence of its having 
ever lived.’ 

The King’s Counsel pointed to the woman’s declaration ; to 
which the counsel replied — ‘A production concocted in a 
moment of terror and agony, and which approached to insanity,’ 
he said, ‘ his learned brother well knew was no sound evidence 
against the party who emitted it. It was true, that a judicial 
confession, in presence of the justices themselves, was the 
strongest of all proof, in so much that it is said in law, that 
“m confitentemnullcB sunt partes judicis.” But this was true 
of judicial confession only, by which law meant that which is 
made in presence of the justices and the sworn inquest. Of 
extrajudicial confession, all authorities held with the illustrious 
Farinaceus and Matheus, confessio extrajudicialis in se nulla 
est ; et quod nullum est, non potest adminicular i.^^ It was totally 
inept, and void of all strength and effect from the beginning ; 
incapable, therefore, of being bolstered up or supported, or, 
according to the law-phrase, adminiculated, by other presump- 
tive circumstances, In the present case, therefore, letting the 
extrajudicial confession go, as it ought to go, for nothing,’ he 
contended, ‘ the prosecutor had not made out the second quality 
of the statute, that a live child had been bom ; and that, at 
least, ought to be established before presumptions were received 
that it had been murdered. If any of the assize,’ he said, 
^should be of opinion that this was dealing rather narrowly 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


243 


with the statute, they ought to consider that it was in its 
nature highly penal, and therefore entitled to no favourable 
construction.’ 

He concluded a learned speech with an eloquent peroration 
on the scene they had just witnessed, during which Saddletree 
fell fast asleep. 

It was now the presiding Judge’s turn to address the jury. 
He did so briefly and distinctly. 

‘It was for the jury,’ he said, ‘to consider whether the 
prosecutor had made out his plea. For himself, he sincerely 
grieved to say that a shadow of doubt remained not upon his 
mind concerning the verdict which the inquest had to bring in. 
He would not follow the prisoner’s counsel through the im- 
peachment which he had brought against the statute of King 
William and Queen Mary. He and the jury were sworn to 
judge according to the laws as they stood, not to criticise, or 
to evade, or even to justify them. In no civil case would a 
counsel have been permitted to plead his client’s case in the 
teeth of the law ; but in the hard situation in which counsel 
were often placed in the Criminal Court, as well as out of 
favour to all presumptions of innocence, he had not inclined to 
interrupt the learned gentleman, or narrow his plea. The 
present law, as it now stood, had been instituted by the wisdom 
of their fathers, to check the alarming progress of a dreadful 
crime ; when it was found too severe for its purpose, it would 
doubtless be altered by the wisdom of the legislature ; at 
present it was the law of the land, the rule of the court, and, 
according to the oath which they had taken, it must be that of 
the jury. This unhappy girl’s situation could not be doubted : 
that she had borne a child, and that the child had disappeared, 
were certain facts. The learned counsel had failed to show 
that she had communicated her situation. All the requisites 
of the case required by the statute were therefore before the 
jury. The learned gentleman had, indeed, desired them to 
throw out of consideration the panel’s own confession, which 
was the plea usually urged, in penury of all others, by counsel 
ill his situation, who usually felt that the declarations of their 
clients bore hard on them. But that the Scottish law designed 
that a certain weight should be laid on these declarations, 
which, he admitted, were quodammodo extrajudicial, was 
evident from the universal practice by which they were always 
produced and read, as part of the prosecutor’s probation. In 
the present case, no person who had heard the witnesses 


244 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


describe the appearance of the young woman before she left 
Saddletree’s house, and contrasted it with that of her state and 
condition at her return to her father’s, could have any doubt 
that the fact of delivery had taken place, as set forth in her 
own declaration, which was, therefore, not a solitary piece of 
testimony, but adminiculated and supported by the strongest 
circumstantial proof. 

‘ He did not,’ he said, ‘ state the impression upon his own 
mind with the purpose of biassing theirs. He had felt no less 
than they had done from the scene of domestic misery which 
had been exhibited before them ; and if they, having God and 
a good conscience, the sanctity of their oath, and the regard 
due to the law of the country, before their eyes, could come to 
a conclusion favourable to this unhappy prisoner, he should 
rejoice as much as any one in Court ; for never had he found 
his duty more distressing than in discharging it that day, and 
glad he would be to be relieved from the still more painful task 
wliich would otherwise remain for him.’ 

The jury, having heard the Judge’s address, bowed and 
retired, preceded by a macer of Court, to the apartment 
destined for their deliberation. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


Law, take thy victim. May she find the mercy 
In yon mild heaven, which this hard world denies her ! 


It was an hour ere the jurors returned, and as they traversed 
the crowd with slow steps, as men about to discharge them- 
selves of a heavy and painful responsibility, the audience was 
hushed into profound, earnest, and awful silence. 

‘ Have you agreed on your chancellor, gentlemen ? ’ was the 
first question of the Judge. 

The foreman, called in Scotland the chancellor of the jury, 
usually the man of best rank and estimation among the assizers, 
stepped forward, and, with a low reverence, delivered to the 
Court a sealed paper, containing the verdict^ which, until of late 
years that verbal returns are in some instances permitted, was 
always couched in writing. The jury remained standing while 
the Judge broke the seals, and, having perused the paper, 
handed it, with an air of mournful gravity, down to the Clerk 
of Court, who proceeded to engross in the record the yet 
unknown verdict, of which, however, all omened the tragical 
contents. A form still remained, trifling and unimportant in 
itself, but to which imagination adds a sort of solemnity, from 
the awful occasion upon which it is used. A lighted candle 
was placed on the table, the original paper containing the 
verdict was inclosed in a sheet of paper, and, sealed with the 
Judge’s own signet, was transmitted to the Crown Office, to be 
preserved among other records of the same kind. As all this is 
transacted in profound silence, the producing and extinguishing 
the candle seems a type of the human spark which is shortly 
afterwards doomed to be quenched, and excites in the spectators 
something of the same effect which in England is obtained by 
the Judge assuming the fatal cap of judgment. When these 
preliminary forms had been gone through, the Judge required 
Euphemia Deans to attend to the verdict to be read. 


246 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


After the usual words of style, the verdict set forth, that 
the jury, having made choice of John Kirk, Esq., to be their 
chancellor, and Thomas Moore, merchant, to be their clerk, did, 
by a plurality of voices, find the said Euphemia Deans Guilty 
of the crime libelled ; but, in consideration of her extreme 
youth, and the cruel circumstances of her case, did earnestly 
entreat that the Judge would recommend her to the mercy of 
the Crown. 

‘Gentlemen,’ said the Judge, ‘you have done your duty, 
and a painful one it must have been to men of humanity like 
you. I will, undoubtedly, transmit your recommendation to the 
throne. But it is my duty to tell all who now hear me, but 
especially to inform that unhappy young woman, in order that 
her mind may be settled accordingly, that I have not the least 
hope of a pardon being granted in the present case. You know 
the crime has been increasing in this land, and I know farther, 
that this has been ascribed to the lenity in which the laws have 
been exercised, and that there is therefore no hope whatever of 
obtaining a remission for this offence.’ The jury bowed again, 
and, released from their painful office, dispersed themselves 
among the mass of bystanders. 

The Court then asked Mr. Fairbrother whether he had any- 
thing to say, why judgment should not follow on the verdict? 
The counsel had spent some time in perusing and re-perusing 
the verdict, counting the letters in each juror’s name, and 
weighing every phrase, nay, every syllable, in the nicest scales 
of legal criticism. But the clerk of the jury had understood his 
business too well. No flaw was to be found, and Eairbrother 
mournfully intimated that he had nothing to say in arrest of 
judgment. 

The presiding Judge then addressed the unhappy prisoner : 

‘ Euphemia Deans, attend to the sentence of the Court now to 
be pronounced against you.’ 

She rose from her seat, and, with a composure far greater 
than could have been augured from her demeanour during some 
parts of the trial, abode the conclusion of the awful scene. So 
nearly does the mental portion of our feelings resemble those 
which are corporal, that the fii'st severe blows which we receive 
bring with them a stunning apathy, which renders us in- 
different to those that follow them. Thus said Mandrin,* when 
he was undergoing the punishment of the wheel ; and so have 

* He was known as captain -general of French smugglers. See a Tract on his 
exploits, printed 1753 {Laing). 



THE TRIAL OF EFFIE DEANS, 





The heart of Midlothian 


247 


all felt upon whom successive inflictions have descended with 
continuous and reiterated violence. 

‘Young woman,’ said the Judge, ‘it is my painful duty to 
tell you, that your life is forfeited under a law which, if it may 
seem in some degree severe, is yet wisely so, to render those of 
your unhappy situation aware what risk they run, by conceal- 
ing, out of pride or false shame, their lapse from virtue, and 
making no preparation to save the lives of the unfortunate 
infants whom they are to bring into the world. When you 
concealed your situation from your mistress, your sister, and 
other worthy and compassionate persons of your own sex, in 
whose favour your former conduct had given you a fair place, 
you seem to me to have had in your contemplation, at least, 
the death of the helpless creature for Avhose life you neglected 
to provide. How the child was disposed of — whether it was 
dealt upon by another, or by yourself ; whether the extra- 
ordinary story you have told is partly false, or altogether so, 
is between God and your own conscience. I will not aggravate 
your distress by pressing on that topic, but I do most solemnly 
adjure you to employ the remaining space of your time in 
making your peace with God, for which purpose such reverend 
clergyman as you yourself may name shall have access to you. 
Notwithstanding the humane recommendation of the jury, I 
cannot aflbrd to you, in the present circumstances of the 
country, the slightest hope that your life will be prolonged 
beyond the period assigned for the execution of your sen- 
tence. Forsaking, therefore, the thoughts of this world, let 
your mind be prepared by repentance for those of more awful 
moments — for death, judgment, and eternity. Doomster,* read 
the sentence.’ 

When the doomster showed himself, a tall haggard figure, 
arrayed in a fantastic garment of black and grey, passemented 
with silver lace, all fell back with a sort of instinctive horror, 
and made wide way for him to approach the foot of the table. 
As this office was held by the common executioner, men 
shouldered each other backward to avoid even the touch of 
his garment, and some were seen to brush their own clothes, 
which had accidentally become subject to such contamination. 
A sound went through the court, produced by each person 
drawing in their breath hard, as men do when they expect or 
witness what is frightful, and at the same time affecting. The 
caitiff villain yet seemed, amid his hardened brutality, to have 

* See Note 26, 


248 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


some sense of his being the object of public detestation, which 
made him impatient of being in public, as birds of evil omen 
are anxious to escape from daylight and from pure air. 

Repeating after the Clerk of Court, he gabbled over the 
words of the sentence, which condemned Euphemia Deans to 
be conducted back to the tolbooth of Edinburgh, and detained 

there until Wednesday the day of ; and upon that 

day, betwixt the hours of two and four o’clock afternoon, to be 
conveyed to the common place of execution, and there hanged 
by the neck upon a .gibbet. ‘And this,’ said the doomster, 
aggravating his harsh voice, ‘ I pronounce for doom.^ 

He vanished when he had spoken the last emphatic word, 
like a foul fiend after the purpose of his visitation has been 
accomplished ; but the impression of horror excited by his pre- 
sence and his errand remained upon the crowd of spectators. 

The unfortunate criminal — for so she must now be termed 
— with more susceptibility and more irritable feelings than her 
father and sister, was found, in this emergence, to possess a 
considerable share of their courage. She had remained stand- 
ing motionless at the bar while the sentence was pronounced, 
and was observed to shut her eyes when the doomster appeared. 
But she was the first to break silence when that evil form had 
left his place. 

‘ God forgive ye, my lords,’ she said, ‘ and dinna be angry 
wi’ me for wishing it — we a’ need forgiveness. As for myself, 
I canna blame ye, for ye act up to your lights ; and if I ha vena 
killed my poor infant, ye may witness a’ that hae seen it this 
day, that I hae been the means of killing my grey-headed father. 
I deserve the warst frae man, and frae God too. But God is 
mair mercifu’ to us than we are to each other.’ 

With these words the trial concluded. The crowd rushed, 
bearing forward and shouldering each other, out of the court 
in the same tumultuary mode in which they had entered ; and, 
in the excitation of animal motion and animal spirits, soon 
forgot whatever they had felt as impressive in the scene which 
they had witnessed. The professional spectators, whom habit 
and theory had rendered as callous to the distress of the scene 
as medical men are to those of a surgical operation, walked 
homeward in groups, discussing the general principle of the 
statute under which the young woman was condemned, the 
nature of the evidence, and the arguments of the counsel, with- 
out considering even that of the Judge as exempt from their 
criticism. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


249 


The female spectators, more compassionate, were loud in 
exclamation against that part of the Judge’s speech which 
seemed to cut off the hope of pardon. 

‘ Set him up, indeed,’ said Mrs. Howden, ‘ to tell us that the 
poor lassie behoved to die, when Mr. John Kirk, as civil a gentle- 
man as is within the ports of the town, took the pains to prigg 
for her himsell.’ 

‘Ay, but, neighbour,’ said Miss Damahoy, drawing up^Jh^ 
thin maidenly form to its full height of prim dignity, ‘I 
really think this unnatural business of having bastard bairns 
should be putten a stop to. There isna a hussy now on this 
side of thirty that you can bring within your doors, but there 
will be chields — writer -lads, prentice -lads, and what not — 
coming traiking after them for their destruction, and discredit- 
ing ane’s honest house into the bargain. I hae nae patience 
■wi’ them.’ 

‘ Hout, neighbour,’ said Mrs. Howden, ‘ we suld live and let 
live; we hae been young oursells, and we are no aye to judge 
the wai'st when lads and lasses forgather.’ 

‘ Young oursells ! and judge the warst ! ’ said Miss Damahoy. 

‘ I am no sae auld as that comes to, Mrs. Howden ; and as for 
what ye ca’ the warst, I ken neither good nor bad about the 
matter, I thank my stars ! ’ 

‘Ye are thankfu’ for sma’ mercies, then,’- said Mrs. Howden, 
with a toss of her head ; ‘ and as for you and young — I trow ye 
were doing for yoursell at the last riding of the Scots Parlia- 
ment, and that was in the gracious year seven, sae ye can be 
nae sic chicken at ony rate.’ 

Plumdamas, who acted as squire of the body to the two con- 
tending dames, instantly saw the hazard of entering into such 
delicate points of chronology, and being a lover of peace and 
good neighbourhood, lost no time in bringing back the conversa- 
tion to its original subject. ‘ The Judge didna tell us a’ he 
could hae tell’d us, if he had liked, about the application for 
pardon, neighbours,’ said he ; ‘ there is aye a wimple in a 
lawyer’s clue ; but it’s a wee bit of a secret.’ 

‘ And what is’t ? — what is’t, neighbour Plumdamas ? ’ said 
Mrs. Howden and Miss Damahoy at once, the acid fermentation 
of their dispute being at once neutralised by the powerful alkali 
implied in the word ‘ secret.’ 

‘ Here’s Mr. Saddletree can tell ye that better than me, for it 
was him that tauld me,’ said Plumdamas, as Saddletree came up, 
with his wife hanging on his arm and looking very disconsolate. 


250 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


When the question was put to Saddletree, he looked very 
scornful. ‘ They speak about stopping the frequency of child- 
murder,’ said he, in a contemptuous tone ; ‘do ye think our 
auld enemies of England, as Glendook aye ca’s them in his 
printed Statute-book, care a boddle whether w^e didna kill ane 
anither, skin and him, horse and foot, man, woman, and bairns, 
all and sindry, omnes et singulos, as Mr. Crossmyloof says ? Na, 
na, it’s no that hinders them frae pardoning the bit lassie. But 
here is the pinch of the plea. The king and queen are sae ill 
pleased wi’ that mistak about Porteous, that deil a kindly Scot 
will they pardon again, either by reprieve or remission, if the 
haill town o’ Edinburgh should be a’ hanged on ae tow.’ 

‘ Deil that they were back at their German kale-yard then, 
as my neighbour MacCroskie ca’s it,’ said Mrs. Howden, ‘an 
that’s the way they’re gaun to guide us ! ’ 

‘They say for certain,’ said Miss Damahoy, ‘that King 
George flang his periwig in the fire when he heard o’ the 
Porteous mob.’ 

‘He has done that, they say,’ replied Saddletree, ‘for less 
thing.’ 

‘ Aweel,’ said Miss Damahoy, ‘ he might keep mair wit in his 
anger ; but it’s a’ the better for his wdgmaker, I’se warrant.’ 

‘ The queen tore her biggonets for perfect anger, ye’ll hae 
heard o’ that too ? ’ said Plumdamas. ‘ And the king, they say, 
kickit Sir Robert Walpole for no keeping down the mob of 
Edinburgh ; but I dinna believe he wad behave sae ungenteel.’ 

‘ It’s dooms truth, though,’ said Saddletree ; ‘ and he was 
for kickin the Duke of Argyle * too.’ 

‘ Kickin the Duke of Argyle ! ’ exclaimed the hearers at once, 
in all the various combined keys of utter astonishment. 

‘ Ay, but MacCallummore’s blood -wadna sit down wi’ that ; 
there was risk of Andro Ferrara coming in thirdsman.’ 

‘ The Duke is a real Scotsman — a true friend to the country,’ 
answered Saddletree’s hearers. 

‘ Ay, troth is he, to king and country baith, as ye sail hear,’ 
continued the orator, ‘ if ye will come in bye to our house, for 
it’s safest speaking of sic things inter parietes.^ 

When they entered his shop he thrust his prentice boy out 
of it, and, unlocking his desk, took out, with an air of grave 
and complacent importance, a dirty and crumpled piece of 
printed paper. He observed, ‘ This is new corn ; it’s no every 
body could show ye the like o’ this. It’s the Duke’s speech 

* See John Duke of Argyle and Greemvich. Note 27. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


251 


about the Porteous mob, just promulgated by the hawkers. 
Ye shall hear what Ian Roy Cean* says for himsell. My corre- 
spondent bought it in the palace-yard, that’s like just under 
the king’s nose. I think he claws up their mittens ! It came 
in a letter about a foolish bill of exchange that the man wanted 
me to renew for him. I wish ye wad see about it, Mrs. Saddle- 
tree.’ 

Honest Mrs. Saddletree had hitherto been so sincerely dis- 
tressed about the situation of her unfortunate that she 

had suffered her husband to proceed in his own way, without 
attending to what he Avas saying. The words ‘ bill ’ and ‘ renew ’ 
had, however, an awakening sound in them ; and she snatched 
the letter which her husband held towards her, and wiping her 
eyes, and putting on her spectacles, endeavoured, as fast as the 
dew which collected on her glasses would permit, to get at the 
meaning of the needful part of the epistle ; while her husband, 
with pompous elevation, read an extract from the speech. 

‘ I am no minister, I never was a minister, and I never will 
be one ’ 

‘ I didna ken his Grace was ever designed for the ministry,’ 
interrupted Mrs. Howden. 

‘ He disna mean a minister of the Gospel, Mrs. Howden, but 
a minister of state,’ said Saddletree, with condescending good- 
ness, and then proceeded : ‘ The time was \Vhen I might have 
been a piece of a minister, but I was too sensible of my own 
incapacity to engage in any state affair. And I thank God that 
I had always too great a value for those few abilities which 
nature has given me, to employ them in doing any drudgery, 
or any job of what kind soever. I have, ever since I set out in 
the world — and I believe few have set out more early — served 
my prince with my tongue ; I have served him with any little 
interest I had ; and I have served him with my sword, and in 
my profession of arms. I have held employments which I have 
lost, and were I to be to-morrow deprived of those which still 
remain to me, and which I have endeavoured honestly to deserve, 
I would still serve him to the last acre of my inheritance, and 
to the last drop of my blood.’ 

Mrs. Saddletree here broke in upon the orator. ‘ Mr. Saddle- 
tree, what is the meaning of a’ this? Here are ye clavering 
about the Duke of Argyle, and this man Martingale gaun to 
break on our hands, and lose us gude sixty pounds. I wonder 

* Red John the Warrior, a name personal and proper in the Highlands to John Duke 
of Argyle and Greenwich, as MacCummin was that of his race or dynasty. 


252 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


what duke will pay that, quotha. I wish the Duke of Argyle 
would pay his ain accounts. He is in a thousand punds Scots 
on thae very books when he was last at Roystoun. Fm no say- 
ing but he’s a just nobleman, and that it’s gude siller ; but it 
wad drive ane daft to be confused wi’ deukes and drakes, and 
thae distressed folk upstairs, that’s Jeanie Deans and her father. 
And then, putting the very callant that was sewing the curpel 
out o’ the shop, to play wd’ blackguards in the close. Sit still, 
neighbours, it’s no that I mean to disturb you ; but what 
between courts o’ law and courts o’ state, and upper and under 
parliaments, and parliament houses, here and in London, the 
gudeman’s gane clean gyte, I think.’ 

The gossips understood civility, and the rule of doing as 
they would be done by, too well to tarry upon the slight in- 
vitation implied in the conclusion of this speech, and therefore 
made their farewells and departure as fast as possible. Saddle- 
tree whispering to Plumdamas that he would ‘ meet him at Mac- 
Croskie’s (the low -browed shop in the Luckenbooths [Lawn- 
market], already mentioned) in the hour of cause, and put 
MacCallummore’s speech in his pocket, for a’ the gudewife’s din.’ 

When Mrs. Saddletree saw the house freed of her importunate 
visitors, and the little boy reclaimed from the pastimes of the 
wynd to the exercise of the awl, she went to visit her unhappy 
relative, David Deans, and his elder daughter, who had found 
in her house the nearest place of friendly refuge. 


CHAPTER XXV 


Isdb. Alas ! what poor ability’s in me 
To do him good ? 

Lucio. Assay the power you have. 

Measure foi' Measure. 

When Mrs. Saddletree entered the apartment in which her 
guests had shrouded their misery, she found the window 
darkened. The feebleness which followed his long swoon had 
rendered it necessary to lay the old man in bed. The curtains 
were drawn around him, and Jeanie sate motionless by the side 
of the bed. Mrs. Saddletree was a woman of kindness, nay, of 
feeling, but not of delicacy. She opened the half-shut window, 
drew aside the curtain, and taking her kinsman by the hand, 
exhorted him to sit up and bear his sorrow like a good man, 
and a Christian man, as he was. But when she quitted his 
hand it fell powerless by his side, nor did he attempt the least 
reply. 

‘Is all over?’ asked Jeanie, with lips and cheeks as pale as 
ashes. ‘ And is there nae hope for her ? ’ 

‘ Nane, or next to nane,’ said Mrs. Saddletree ; ‘ I heard the 
Judge-carle say it with my ain ears. It was a burning shame 
to see sae mony o’ them set up yonder in their red gowns and 
black gowns, and a’ to take the life o’ a bit senseless lassie. I 
had never muckle broo o’ my gudeman’s gossips, and now I 
like them waur than ever. The only wise-like thing I heard 
ony body say was decent Mr. John Kirk of Kirk Knowe, and 
he wussed them just to get the* king’s mercy, and nae mair 
about it. But he spake to unreasonable folk ; he might just 
hae keepit his breath ta hae blawn on his porridge.’ 

‘But can the king gie her mercy?’ said Jeanie, earnestly. 

‘ Some folk tell me he canna gie mercy in cases of mur in 

cases like hers.’ 

‘ Can he gie mercy, hinny ? I weel I wot he can, when he 
likes. There was young Singlesword, that stickit the Laird of 


254 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Ballencleuch ; and Captain Hackum, the Englishman, that killed 
Lady Colgrain’s gudeman ; and the Master of St. Clair, that 
shot the twa Shaws ; * and mony mair in my time — to be sure 
they were gentle bluid, and had their kin to speak for them — 
and there was Jock Porteous, the other day. I’se warrant 
there’s mercy, an folk could win at it.’ 

^ Porteous ! ’ said Jeanie ; ‘ very true. I forget a’ that I suld 
maist mind. Fare ye weel, Mrs. Saddletree ; and may ye never 
want a friend in the hour o’ distress ! ’ 

‘Will ye no stay wi’ your father, Jeanie, bairn? Ye had 
better,’ said Mrs. Saddletree. 

‘I will be wanted ower yonder,’ indicating the tolbooth 
with her hand, ‘ and I maun leave him now, or I will never be 
able to leave him. I fearna for his life ; I ken how strong- 
hearted he is — I ken it,’ she said, laying her hand on her 
bosom, ‘ by my ain heart at this minute.’ 

‘Weel, hinny, if ye think it’s for the best, better he stay 
here and rest him than gang back to St. Leonard’s.’ 

‘ Muckle better — muckle better ; God bless you — God bless 
you ! At no rate let him gang till ye hear frae me,’ said 
Jeanie. 

‘ But ye’ll be back bely ve ? ’ said Mrs. Saddletree, detaining 
her ; ‘ they wunna let ye stay yonder, hinny.’ 

‘ But I maun gang to St. Leonard’s ; there’s muckle to be 
dune and little time to do it in. And I have friends to speak 
to. God bless you ! take care of my father.’ 

She had reached the door of the apartment when, suddenly 
turning, she came back and knelt down by the bedside. ‘ 0 
father, gie me your blessing ; I dare not go till ye bless me. 
Say but “ God bless ye and prosper ye, Jeanie ” ; try but to say 
that!’ 

Instinctively, rather than by an exertion of intellect, the 
old man murmured a prayer that ‘purchased and promised 
blessings might be multiplied upon her.’ 

‘ He has blessed mine errand,’ said his daughter, rising from 
her knees, ‘ and it is borne in upon my mind that I shall 
prosper.’ 

So saying, she left the room. 

Mrs. Saddletree looked after her, and shook her head. ‘ I 
wish she binna roving, poor thing. There’s something queer 
about a’ thae Deanses. I dinna like folk to be sae muckle 
better than other folk ; seldom comes gude o’t. But if she’s 

* See Murder of the Two Shaws, Note 28. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


265 


I gaim to look after the kye at St. Leonard’s, that’s another 
story ; to be sure they maun be sorted. Grizzle, come up here 
and take tent to the honest auld man, and see he wants nae- 
thing. Ye silly tawpie (addressing the maid -servant as she 
entered), Avhat garr’d ye busk up your cockernony that gate ? 
I think there’s been eneugh the day to gie an awfu’ warning 
about your cock-ups and your fal-lal duds ; see what they a’ 
come to,’ etc. etc. etc. 

I Leaving the good lady to her lecture upon worldly vanities, 
we must transport our reader to the cell in which the unfortu- 
nate Effie Deans was now immured, being restricted of several 
liberties which she had enjoyed before the sentence was pro- 
, nounced. 

When she had remained about an hour in the state of stupi- 
fied horror so natural in her situation, she was disturbed by the 
opening of the jarring bolts of her place of confinement, and 
iRatcliffe showed himself. ‘It’s your sister,’ he said, ‘wants to 
speak t’ye, Effie.’ 

‘I canna see naebody,’ said Effie, with the hasty irritability 
which misery had rendered more acute — ‘ I canna see naebody, 
and least of a’ her. Bid her take care of the, aiild man : I am 
naething to ony o’ them now, nor them to me.’ 
i ‘She says she maun see ye, though,’ said Ratcliffe; and 
Jeanie, rushing into the apartment, threw her arms round her 
sister’s neck, who writhed to extricate herself from her embrace, 
j ‘What signifies coming to greet ower me,’ said poor Effie, 

I ‘ Avhen you have killed me ? killed me, when a word of your 
I mouth would have saved me ; killed me, when I am an innocent 
creature — innocent of that guilt at least — and me that wad hae 
wared body and soul to save your finger from being hurt ! ’ 

! ‘You shall not die,’ said Jeanie, with enthusiastic firmness; 

‘ say what ye like o’ me, think what ye like o’ me, only promise 
— for I doubt your proud heart — that ye wunna harm yourself, 
and you shall not die this shameful death.’ 

‘A shameful death I will not die, Jeanie, lass. I have that 
in my heart, though it has been ower kind a ane, that wunna 
' bide shame. Gae hame to our father, and think nae mair on 
me : I have eat my last earthly meal.’ 

‘ 0, this was what I feared ! ’ said Jeanie. 

‘ Hout, tout, hinny,’ said Ratcliffe ; ‘ it’s but little ye ken o’ 
thae things. Ane aye thinks at the first dinnle o’ the sentence, 
they hae heart eneugh to die rather than bide out the sax 
weeks; but they aye bide the sax weeks out for a’ that. I 


256 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


ken the gate o’t weel ; I hae fronted the doomster three times, I 
and here I stand, Jim Ratcliffe, for a’ that. Had I tied my | 
napkin strait the first time, as I had a great mind till’t — and it | 
was a’ about a bit grey cowt, wasna worth ten punds sterling — : 
where would I have been now ? ’ I 

‘And how did you escape?’ said Jeanie, the fates of this 
man, at first so odious to her, having acquired a sudden interest 
in her eyes from their correspondence with those of her sister. 

^ How did I escape?’ said Ratcliffe, with a knowing wink. 

‘ I tell ye I ’scapit in a way that naebody will escape from this 
tolbooth Avhile I keep the keys.’ 

‘ My sister shall come out in the face of the sun,’ said Jeanie ; 

‘ I will go to London and beg her pardon from the king and 
queen. If they pardoned Porteous, they may pardon her ; if a 
sister asks a sister’s life on her bended knees, they ivill pardon 
her — they shall pardon her — and they will win a thousand 
hearts by it.’ 

Effie listened in bewildered astonishment, and so earnest w:as 
her sister’s enthusiastic assurance, that she almost involuntarily 
caught a gleam of hope ; but it instantly faded away. 

‘Ah, Jeanie ! the king and queen live in London, a thousand 
miles from this — far ayont the saut sea ; I’ll be gane before ye 
win there ! ’ 

‘You are mistaen,’ said Jeanie; ‘it is no sae far, and they 
go to it by land ; I learned something about thae things from 
Reuben Butler.’ 

‘ Ah, Jeanie ! ye never learned ony thing but what was gude 

frae the folk ye keepit company wi’ ; but I — but I ’ she 

wrung her hands and wept bitterly. 

‘Dinna think on that now,’ said Jeanie; ‘there will be time 
for that if the present space be redeemed. Fare ye weel ! 
Unless I die by the road, I will see the king’s face that gies 
grace. 0, sir (to Ratcliffe), be kind to her. She ne’er kenn’d 
what it was to need stranger’s kindness till now. Fareweel — 
fareweel, Effie ! Dinna speak to me ; I ' maunna greet now, 
my head’s ower dizzy already ! ’ 

She tore herself from her sister’s arms, and left the cell. 
Ratcliffe followed her, and beckoned her into a small room. 
She obeyed his signal, but not without trembling. 

‘What’s the fule thing shaking for?’ said he; ‘I mean 
nothing but civility to you. D — n me, I respect you, and I 
can’t help it. You have so much spunk, that — d — n me, but I 
think there’s some chance of your carrying the day. But you 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


257 


must not go to the king till you have made some friend ; try 
the Duke — try MacCallummore ; he’s Scotland’s friend. I ken 
that the great folks dinna muckle like him ; but they fear him, 
and that will serve your purpose as week D’ye ken naebody 
wad gie ye a letter to him ? ’ 

‘ Duke of Argyle ! ’ said Jeanie, recollecting herself suddenly. 
^ What was he to that Argyle that suffered in my father’s time 
— in the persecution ? ’ 

‘His son or grandson, I’m thinking,’ said Ratcliffe; ‘but 
what o’ that ? ’ 

‘Thank God !’ said Jeanie, devoutly clasping her hands. 

‘ You Whigs are aye thanking God for something,’ said the 
ruffian. ‘But hark ye, hinny. I’ll tell ye a secret. Ye may 
meet wi’ rough customers on the Border, or in the Midland, 
afore ye get to Lunnon. Now, deil ane o’ them will touch an 
acquaintance o’ Daddie Ratton’s ; for though I am retired frae 
public practice, yet they ken I can do a gude or an ill turn yet ; 
and deil a gude fellow that has been but a twelvemonth on 
the lay, be he ruffler or padder, but he knows my gybe as well 
as the jark of e’er a queer cuffin in England, — and there’s rogue’s 
Latin for you.’ 

It was, indeed, totally unintelligible to Jeanie Deans, who 
was only impatient to escape from him. He hastily scrawled a 
line or two on a dirty piece of paper, and said to her, as she 
drew back when he offered it, ‘ Hey ! what the deil ! it wunna 
bite you, my lass ; if it does nae gude, it can do nae ill. But 
I wish you to show it,^ if you have ony fasherie wi’ ony o’ St. 
Nicholas’s clerks.’ 

‘ Alas ! ’ said she, ‘ I do not understand what you mean ? ’ 

‘ I mean, if ye fall among thieves, my precious ; that is a 
Scripture phrase, if ye will hae ane. The bauldest of them will 
ken a scart o’ my guse feather. And now awa wi’ ye, and stick 
to Argyle ; if ony body can do the job, it maun be him.’ 

After casting an anxious look at the grated windows and 
blackened walls of the old tolbooth, and another scarce less 
anxious at the hospitable lodging of Mrs. Saddletree, Jeanie 
turned her back on that quarter, and soon after on the city 
itself. She reached St. Leonard’s Crags without meeting any 
one whom she knew, which, in the state of her mind, she con- 
sidered as a great blessing. ‘ I must do naething,’ she thought, 
as she went along, ‘ that can soften or weaken my heart ; it’s 
ower weak already for what I hae to do. I will think and act 
as firmly as I can, and speak as little.’ 

17 


VII 


258 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


There was an ancient servant, or rather cottar, of her father’s, |j 
who had lived under him for many years, and whose fidelity | 
was worthy of full confidence. She sent for this woman, and |j 
explaining to her that the circumstances of her family required ; 
that she should undertake a journey which would detain her for !“ 
some weeks from home, she gave her full instructions concerning 
the management of the domestic affairs in her absence. With , 
a precision which, upon reflection, she herself could not help 
wondering at, she described and detailed the most minute steps ; 
which were to be taken, and especially such as were necessary ' 
for her father’s comfort. ‘It was probable,’ she said, ‘that he ; 
would return to St. Leonard’s to-mori’ow — certain that he would 1 
return very soon ; all must be in order for him. He had enough 
to distress him, without being fashed about warldly matters.’ 

In the meanwhile she toiled busily, along with May Hettly, 
to leave nothing unarranged. ^ 

It was deep in the night when all these matters were settled ; | 
and when they had partaken of some food, the first which Jeanie 
had tasted on that eventful day, May Hettly, whose usual 
residence was a cottage at a little distance from Deans’s house, 
asked her young mistress whether she would not permit her to 
remain in the house all night. ‘Ye hae had an awfu’ day,’ 
she said, ‘ and sorrow and fear are but bad companions in the 
watches of the night, as I hae heard the gudeman say himsell.’ 

‘They are ill companions indeed,’ said Jeanie; ‘but I maun 
learn to abide their presence, and better begin in the house than 
in the field.’ 

She dismissed her aged assistant accordingly — for so slight 
was the gradation in their rank of life that we can hardly 
term May a servant — and proceeded to make a few preparations 
for her journey. 

The simplicity of her education and country made these 
preparations very brief and easy. Her tartan screen served all 
the purposes of a riding-habit and of an umbrella; a small 
bundle contained such changes of linen as were absolutely neces- 
sary. Barefooted, as Sancho says, she had come into the world, 
and barefooted she proposed to perform her pilgrimage; and 
her clean shoes and change of snow-white thread stockings were 
to be reserved for special occasions of ceremony. She was not 
aware that the English habits of comfort attach an idea of 
abject misery to the idea of a barefooted traveller; and if the 
objection of cleanliness had been made to the practice, she would 
have been apt to vindicate herself upon the very frequent 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


259 


ablutions to which, with Mahometan scrupulosity, a Scottish 
damsel of some condition usually subjects herself. Thus far, 
therefore, all was well. 

From an oaken press or cabinet, in which her father kept a 
few old books, and two or three bundles of papers, besides his 
ordinary accounts and receipts, she sought out and extracted 
from a parcel of notes of sermons, calculations of interest, re- 
cords of dying speeches of the martyrs, and the like, one or two 
documents which she thought might be of some use to her upon 
her mission. But the most important difficulty remained 
behind, and it had not occurred to her until that very evening. 
It was the want of money, without which it was impossible she 
could undertake so distant a journey as she now meditated. 

David Deans, as we have said, was easy, and even opulent, 
in his circumstances. But his wealth, like that of the patriarchs 
of old, consisted in his kine and herds, and in two or three sums 
lent out at interest to neighbours or relatives, who, far from 
being in circumstances to pay anything to account of the prin- 
cipal sums, thought they did all that was incumbent on them 
when, with considerable difficulty, they discharged ‘ the annual 
rent.’ To these debtors it would be in vain, therefore, to apply, 
even with her father’s concurrence ; nor could she hope to ob- 
tain such concurrence, or assistance in any mode, without such 
a series of explanations and debates as she felt might deprive 
her totally of the power of taking the step, which, however 
daring and hazardous, she knew was absolutely necessary for 
trying the last chance in favour of her sister. Without depart- 
ing from filial reverence, Jeanie had an inward conviction that 
the feelings of her father, however just, and upright, and honour- 
able, were too little in unison with the spirit of the time to 
admit of his being a good judge of the measures to be adopted 
in this crisis. Herself more flexible in manner, though no less 
upright in principle, she felt that to ask his consent to her 
pilgrimage would be to encounter the risk of drawing down his 
positive prohibition, and under that she believed her journey 
could not be blessed in its progress and event. Accordingly, 
she had determined upon the means by which she might com- 
municate to him her undertaking and its purpose shortly after 
her actual departure. But it was impossible to apply to him 
for money without altering this arrangement, and discussing 
fully the propriety of her journey; pecuniary assistance from 
that quarter, therefore, was laid out of the question. 

It now occurred to Jeanie that she should have consulted 


260 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


with Mrs. Saddletree on this subject. But, besides the time | 
that must now necessarily be lost in recurring to her assistance, 1 
Jeanie internally revolted from it. Her heart acknowledged | 
the goodness of Mrs. Saddletree’s general character, and the : 
kind interest she took in their family misfortunes ; but still I 
she felt that Mrs. Saddletree was a woman of an ordinary and ! 
worldly way of thinking, incapable, from habit and tempera- 
ment, of taking a keen or enthusiastic view of such a resolution 
as she had formed ; and to debate the point with her, and to 
rely upon her conviction of its propriety for the means of 
carrying it into execution, would have been gall and worm- 
wood. 

Butler, whose assistance she might have been assured of, 
was greatly poorer than herself. In these circumstances, she 
formed a singular resolution for the purpose of surmounting 
this difficulty, the execution of which will form the subject of 
the next chapter. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


Tis the voice of the sluggard, I’ve heard him complain, 

‘ You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again ’ ; 

As the door on its hinges, so he on his bed, 

Turns his side, and his shoulders, and his heavy head. 

Dr. Watts. 

The mansion-house of Dumbiedikes, to which we are now to 
introduce our readers, lay three or four miles — no matter for 
the exact topography — to the southward of St. Leonard’s. It 
had once borne the appearance of some little celebrity ; for the 
Auld Laird, whose humours and pranks were often mentioned 
in the alehouses for about a mile round it, wore a sword, kept 
a good horse, and a brace of greyhounds ; brawled, swore, and 
betted at cock-fights and horse-matches; followed Somerville 
of Drum’s hawks and the Lord Ross’s hounds ; and called him- 
self point devise a gentleman. But the line had been veiled of 
its splendour in the present proprietor, who cared for no rustic 
amusements, and was as saving, timid, and retired as his father 
had been at once grasping and selfishly extravagant, daring, 
wild, and intrusive. 

Dumbiedikes was what is called in Scotland a ‘ single ’ house ; 
that is, having only one room occupying its whole depth from 
back to front, each of which single apartments was illuminated 
by six or eight cross lights, whose diminutive panes and heavy 
frames permitted scarce so much light to enter as shines through 
one well-constmcted modern window. This inartificial edifice, 
exactly such as a child would build with cards, had a steep 
roof flagged with coarse grey stones instead of slates ; a half- 
circular turret, battlemented, or, to use the appropriate phrase, 
bartizan’d on the top, served as a case for a narrow turnpike - 
stair, by which an ascent was gained from story to story ; and 
at the bottom of the said turret was a door studded with large- 
headed nails. There was no lobby at the bottom of the tower, 
and scarce a landing-place opposite to the doors which gave 


262 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


access to the apartments. One or two low and dilapidated out' 
houses, connected by a courtyard wall equally ruinous, sur- 
rounded the mansion. The court had been paved, but the flags 
being partly displaced and partly renewed, a gallant crop of 
docks and thistles sprung up between them, and the small 
garden, which opened by a postern through the w^all, seemed 
not to be in a much more orderly condition. Over the low-arched 
gateway which led into the yard, there was a carved stone, 
exhibiting some attempt at armorial bearings ; and above the 
inner entrance hung, and had hung for many years, the moulder- 
ing hatchment, which announced that umquhile Laurence 
Dumbie of Dumbiedikes had been gathered to his fathers in 
Newbattle kirkyard. The approach to this palace of pleasure 
was by a road formed by the rude fragments of stone gathered 
from the fields, and it was surrounded by ploughed but unin- 
closed land. Upon a baulk, that is, an unploughed ridge of 
land interposed among the corn, the Laird’s trusty palfrey was 
tethered by the head, and picking a meal of grass. The whole 
argued neglect and discomfort, the consequence, however, of 
idleness and indifference, not of poverty. 

In this inner court, not without a sense of bashfulness and 
timidity, stood Jeanie Deans, at an early hour in a fine spring 
morning. She was no heroine of romance, and therefore looked 
with some curiosity and interest on the mansion-house and 
domains, of which, it might at that moment occur to her, a 
little encouragement, such as women of all ranks know by 
instinct how' to apply, might have made her mistress. More- 
over, she was no person of taste beyond her time, rank, and 
country, and certainly thought the house of Dumbiedikes, 
though inferior to Holyrood House or the palace at Dalkeith, 
was still a stately structure in its way, and the land a ‘ very 
bonny bit, if it were better seen to aiid done to.’ But Jeanie 
Deans was a plain, true-hearted, honest girl, who, while she 
acknowledged all the splendour of her old admirer’s habitation, 
and the value of his property, never for a moment harboured a 
thought of doing the Laird, Butler, or herself the injustice which 
many ladies of higher rank would not have hesitated to do to 
all three on much less temptation. ' 

Her present errand being with the Laird, she looked round 
the offices to see if she could find any domestic to announce that 
she wished to see him. As all was silence, she ventured to open 
one door : it was the old Laird’s dog -kennel, now deserted, 
unless when occupied, as one or two tubs seemed to testify, as 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


263 


a washing-house. She tried another : it was the roofless shed 
where the hawks liad been once kept, as appeared from a perch 
or two not yet completely rotten, and a lure and jesses which 
were mouldering on the wall. A third door led to the coal- 
house, which was well stocked. To keep a very good fire was 
one of the few points of domestic management in which Dumbie- 
dikes was positively active ; in all other matters of domestic 
economy he was completely passive, and at the mercy of his 
housekeeper, the same buxom dame whom his father had long 
.since bequeathed to his charge, and who, if fame did her no 
injustice, had feathered her nest pretty well at his expense. 

Jeanie went on opening doors, like the second Calender 
wanting an eye, in the castle of the hundred obliging damsels, 
until, like the said prince eiTant, she came to a stable. The 
Highland Pegasus, Rory Bean, to which belonged the single 
entire stall, was her old acquaintance, whom she had seen 
grazing on the baulk, as she failed not to recognise by the well- 
known ancient riding furniture and demi-pique saddle, which 
half hung on the walls, half trailed on the litter. Beyond the 
‘ treviss,’ w'-hich formed one side of the stall, stood a cow, who 
turned her head and lowed when Jeanie came into the stable, 
an appeal which her habitual occupations enabled her perfectly 
i to understand, and with which she could not refuse complying, 
by shaking down some fodder to the animal, which had been 
neglected like most things else in this castle of the sluggard. 

While she was accommodating ‘ the milky mother ’ with the 
! food which she should have received two hours sooner, a slip- 
f shod wench peeped into the stable, and perceiving that a 
I stranger was employed in discharging the task which she, at 
^ length, and reluctantly, had quitted her slumbers to perform, 

I ejaculated, ‘ Eh, sirs ! the brownie ! the brownie ! ’ and fled, 

I yelling as if she had seen the devil. 

I To explain her terror, it may be necessary to notice that the 
i old house of Dumbiedikes had, according to report, been long 
haunted by a brownie, one of those familiar spirits who were 
believed in ancient times to supply the deficiencies of the 
ordinary labourer — 

Whirl the long mop and ply the airy flail. 

Certes, the convenience of such a supernatural assistant could 
have been nowhere more sensibly felt than in a family where 
the domestics were so little disposed to personal activity ; yet 
this serving maiden was so far from rejoicing in seeing a 


264 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


supposed aerial substitute discharging a task which she should 
have long since performed herself, that she proceeded to raise 
the family by her screams of horror, uttered as thick as if the 
brownie had been flaying her. Jeanie, who had immediately 
resigned her temporary occupation and followed the yelling 
damsel into the courtyard, in order to undeceive and appease 
her, was there met by Mrs. Janet Balchristie, the favourite 
sultana of the last Laird, as scandal went — the housekeeper of 
the present. The good-looking buxom woman, betwixt forty 
and fifty (for such we described her at the death of the last 
Laird), was now a fat, red-faced, old dame of seventy, or there- 
abouts, fond of her place, and jealous of her authority. 
Conscious that her administration did not rest on so sure a 
basis as in the time of the old proprietor, this considerate lady 
had introduced into the family the screamer aforesaid, who 
added good features and bright eyes to the powers of her lungs. 
She made no conquest of the Laird, however, who seemed to 
live as if there was not another woman in the world but Jeanie 
Deans, and to bear no very ardent or overbearing affection even 
to her. Mrs. Janet Balchristie, notwithstanding, had her own 
uneasy thoughts upon the almost daily visits to St. Leonard’s 
Crags, and often, when the Laird looked at her wistfully and 
paused, according to his custom before utterance, she expected 
him to say, ‘Jenny, I am gaun to change my condition’; but 
she was relieved by ‘Jenny, I am gaun to change my shoon.’ 

Still, however, Mrs. Balchristie regarded Jeanie Deans with 
no small portion of malevolence, the customary feeling of such 
persons towards any one who they think has the means of doing 
them an injury. But she had also a general aversion to any 
female, tolerably young and decently well-looking, who showed 
a wish to approach the house of Dumbiedikes and the proprietor 
thereof. And as she had raised her mass of mortality out of 
bed two hours earlier than usual, to come to the rescue of her 
clamorous niece, she was in such extreme bad humour against 
all and sundry, that Saddletree would have pronounced that 
she harboured inimicitiam contra omnes mortales. 

‘Wha the deil are ye?’ said the fat dame to poor Jeanie, 
whom she did not immediately recognise, ‘scouping about a 
decent house at sic an hour in the morning ? ’ 

‘ It was ane wanting to speak to the Laird,’ said Jeanie, who 
felt something of the intuitive terror which she had formerly 
entertained for this termagant, when she was occasionally at 
Dumbiedikes on business of her father’s. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


265 


‘ Ane ! And what sort of ane are ye ? hae ye nae name ? 
D’ye think his honour has naething else to do than to speak 
wi’ ilka idle tramper that comes about the town, and him in his 
bed yet, honest man 1 ’ 

‘ Dear, Mrs. Balchristie,’ replied Jeanie, in a submissive tone, 
‘d’ye no mind me? — d’ye no mind Jeanie Deans?’ 

‘ J eanie Deans ! ! ’ said the termagant, in accents affecting 
the utmost astonishment ; then, taking two strides nearer to 
her, she peered into her face with a stare of curiosity, equally 
scornful and malignant. ‘I say Jeanie Deans, indeed — Jeanie 
Deevil, they had better hae ca’d ye ! A bonny spot o’ wark 
your tittie and you hae made out, murdering ae puir wean, and 
your light linimer of a sister’s to be hanged for’t, as weel she 
deserves ! And the like o’ you to come to ony honest man’s 
house, and want to be into a decent bachelor gentleman’s room 
at this time in the morning, and him in his bed ? Gae wa’ — 


gae wa ! ’ 

J eanie was struck mute with shame at the unfeeling brutality 
of tliis accusation, and could not even find words to justify her- 
self from the vile construction put upon her visit, when Mrs. 
Balchristie, seeing her advantage, continued in the same tone, 
‘ Come, come, bundle up your pipes and tramp awa’ wi’ je ! 
ye may be seeking a father to another wean for ony thing I ken. 
If it wama that your father, auld David Deans, had been a 
tenant on our land, I would cry up the men-folk and hae ye 
dookit in the burn for your impudence.’ 

Jeanie had already turned her back and was walking towards 
the door of the courtyard, so that Mrs. Balchristie, to make 
her last threat impressively audible to her, had raised her 
stentorian voice to its utmost pitch. But, like many a general, 
she lost the engagement by pressing her advantage too far. 

The Laird had been disturbed in his morning slumbers by 
the tones of Mrs. Balchristie’s objurgation, sounds in themselves 
by no means uncommon, but very remarkable in respect to the 
early hour at which they were now heard. He turned himself 
on the other side, however, in hopes the squall would blow by, 
when, in the course of Mrs. Balchristie’s second explosion of 
wrath, the name of Deans distinctly struck the tympanum of 
his ear. As he was, in some degree, aware of the small portion 
of benevolence with which his housekeeper regarded the family 
at St. Leonard’s, he instantly conceived that some message 
from thence was the cause of this untimely ire, and getting out 
of his bed, he slipt as speedily as possible into an old brocaded 


266 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


nightgown and some other necessary integuments, clapped on 
his head his father’s gold-laced hat (for though he was seldom 
seen without it, yet it is proper to contradict the popular 
report that he slept in it, as Don Quixote did in his helmet), 
and opening the window of his bedroom, beheld, to his great 
astonishment, the well-known figure of Jeanie Deans herself re- 
treating from his gate; while his housekeeper, with arms akimbo, 
fists clenched and extended, body erect, and head shaking with 
rage, sent after her a volley of Billingsgate oaths. His choler 
rose in proportion to the surprise, and, perhaps, to the disturb- 
ance of his repose. ‘ Hark ye,’ he exclaimed from the window, 
‘ ye auld limb of Satan ! wha the deil gies you commission to 
guide an honest man’s daughter that gate 1 ’ 

Mrs. Balchristie was completely caught in the manner. She 
was aware, from the unusual warmth with which the Laird 
expressed himself, that he was quite serious in this matter, and 
she knew that, with all his indolence of nature, there were 
points on which he might be provoked, and that, being pro- 
voked, he had in him something dangerous, which her wisdom 
taught her to fear accordingly. She began, therefore, to retract 
her false step as fast as she could. ‘ She was but speaking for 
the house’s credit, and she couldna think of disturbing his 
honour in the morning sae early, when the young woman 
might as weel wait or call again ; and, to be sure, she might 
make a mistake between the twa sisters, for ane o’ them wasna 
sae creditable an acquaintance.’ 

‘ Hand your peace, ye auld jade,’ said Dumbiedikes ; ‘ the 
warst quean e’er stude in their shoon may ca’ you cousin, an a’ 
be true that I have heard. Jeanie, my woman, gang into the 
parlour — but stay, that winna be redd up yet ; wait there a 
minute till I come doun to let ye in. Dinna mind what Jenny 
says to ye.’ 

‘Na, na,’ said Jenny, with a laugh of affected heartiness, 

‘ never mind me, lass. A’ the warld kens my bark’s waur than 
my bite ; if ye had had an appointment wi’ the Laird, ye might 
hae tauld me, I am nae uncivil person. Gang your ways in bye, 
hinny.’ And she opened the door of the house with a master-key. 

‘ But I had no appointment wi’ the Laird,’ said Jeanie, draw- 
ing back ; ‘ I want just to speak twa words to him, and I wad 
rather do it standing here, Mrs. Balchristie.’ 

‘ In the open courtyard ? Na, na, that wad never do, lass ; 
we maunna guide ye that gate neither. And how’s that douce 
honest man, your father ? ’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


267 


Jeanie was saved the pain of answering this hypocritical 
question by the appearance of the Laird himself. 

‘Gang in and get breakfast ready,’ said he to his house- 
keeper ; ‘ and, d’ye hear, breakfast wi’ us yoursell ; ye ken how 
to manage thae pori’ingers of tea-water; and, hear ye, see 
abune a’ that there’s a gude fire. Weel, Jeanie, my woman, 
gang in bye — gang in bye, and rest ye.’ 

‘Na, Laird,’ Jeanie replied, endeavouring as much as she 
could to express herself with composure, notwithstanding she 
still trembled, ‘ I canna gang in : I have a lang day’s darg afore 
me ; I maun be twenty mile o’ gate the night yet, if feet will 
carry me.’ 

‘ Guide and deliver us ! twenty mile — twenty mile on your 
feet ! ’ ejaculated Dumbiedikes, whose walks were of a very 
circumscribed diameter. ‘ Ye maun never think o’ that ; come 
in bye.’ 

‘ I canna do that, Laird,’ replied J eanie. ‘The twa words I hae 
to say to ye I can say here ; forbye that Mrs. Balchristie ’ 

‘ The deil flee awa’ wi’ Mrs. Balchristie,’ said Dumbiedikes, 
‘and he’ll hae a heavy lading o’ her ! I tell ye, Jeanie Deans, 
I am a man of few words, but I am laird at hame as weel 
as in the field : deil a brute or body about my house but 
I can manage when I like, except Rory Bean, my powny ; 
but I can seldom be at the plague, an it binna when my 
bluid’s up.’ 

‘ I was wanting to say to ye, Laird,’ said Jeanie, who felt 
the necessity of entering upon her business, ‘ that I was gaun a 
lang journey, outbye of my father’s knowledge.’ 

‘Outbye his knowledge, Jeanie ! Is that right? Ye maun 
think o’t again ; it’s no right,’ said Dumbiedikes, with a coun- 
tenance of great concern. 

‘ If I were anes at Lunnon,’ said Jeanie, in exculpation, ‘ I 
am amaist sure I could get means to speak to the queen about 
my sister’s life.’ 

‘ Lunnon, and the queen, and her sister’s life ! ’ said Dumbie- 
dikes, AVhistling for very amazement ; ‘ the lassie’s demented.’ 

‘ I am no out o’ my mind,’ said she, ‘ and, sink or swim, I 
am determined to gang to Lunnon, if I suld beg my way frae 
door to door ; and so I maun, unless ye wad lend me a small 
sum to pay my expenses. Little thing will do it ; and ye ken 
my father’s a man of substance, and wad see nae man, far less 
you, Laird, come to loss by me.’ 

Dumbiedikes, on comprehending the nature of this applica- 


268 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


tion, could scarce trust his ears ; he made no answer whatever, 
but stood with his eyes riveted on the ground. 

‘I see ye are no for assisting me, Laird,’ said Jeanie; ‘sae 
fare ye weel ; and gang and see my poor father as aften as ye 
can, he will be lonely eneugh now.’ 

‘Where is the silly bairn gaun?’ said Dumbiedikes; and, 
laying hold of her hand, he led her into the house. ‘ It’s no 
that I didna think o’t before,’ he said, ‘but it stack in my 
throat.’ 

Thus speaking to himself, he led her into an old-fashioned 
parlour, shut the door behind them, and fastened it with a bolt. 
While Jeanie, surprised at this manoeuvre, remained as near the 
door as possible, the Laird quitted her hand, and pressed upon 
a spring lock fixed in an oak panel in the wainscot, which in- 
stantly slipped aside. An iron strong-box was discovered in a 
recess of the wall ; he opened this also, and, pulling out two or 
three drawers, showed that they were filled with leathern bags, 
full of gold and silver coin. 

‘This is my bank, Jeanie, lass,’ he said, looking first at her 
and then at the treasure, with an air of great complacency; 
‘ nane o’ your goldsmith’s bills for me ; they bring folk to ruin.’ 

Then suddenly changing his tone, he resolutely said — 
‘Jeanie, I will make ye Leddy Dumbiedikes afore the sun sets, 
and ye may ride to Lunnon in your ain coach, if ye like.’ 

‘Na, Laird,’ said Jeanie, ‘that can never be: my father’s 
grief, my sister’s situation, the discredit to you ’ 

‘ That’s my business,’ said Dumbiedikes. ‘ Ye wad say nae- 
thing about that if ye werena a fule ; and yet I like ye the 
better for’t : ae wise body’s eneugh in the married state. But 
if your heart’s ower fu’, take what siller will serve ye, and let 
it be when ye come back again, as glide syne as sune.’ 

‘But, Laird,’ said Jeanie, who felt the necessity of being 
explicit with so extraordinary a lover, ‘I like another man 
better than you, and I canna marry ye.’ 

‘Another man better than me, Jeanie ! ’ said Dumbiedikes ; 
‘ how is that possible ? It’s no possible, woman ; ye hae kenn’d 
me sae lang.’ 

‘Ay, but, Laird,’ said Jeanie, with persevering simplicity, ‘I 
hae kenn’d him langer.’ 

‘ Langer ! It’s no possible ! ’ exclaimed the poor Laird. ‘ It 
canna be ; ye were born on the land. 0 Jeanie, woman, ye 
haena lookit — ye haena seen the half o’ the gear.’ He drew 
out another drawer. ‘A’ gowd, Jeanie, and there’s bands for 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


269 


siller lent. And the rental book, Jeanie — clear three hunder 
sterling ; deil a wadset, heritable band, or burden. Ye haena 
lookit at them, woman. And then my mother’s wardrobe, and 
my grandmother’s forbye — silk gowns wad stand on their ends, 
pearlin-lace as fine as spiders’ webs, and rings and ear-rings to 
the boot of a’ that ; they are a’ in the chamber of deas. Oh, 
Jeanie, gang up the stair and look at them ! ’ 

But Jeanie held fast her integrity, though beset with tempta- 
tions which perhaps the Laird of Dumbiedikes did not greatly 
err in supposing were those most affecting to her sex. 

‘ It canna be, Laird : I have said it, and I canna break my 
word till him, if ye wad gie me the haill barony of Dalkeith, 
and Lugton into the bargain.’ 

‘Your word to A^m,’ said the Laird, somewhat pettishly; 
‘but wha is he, Jeanie? — wha is he? I haena heard his name 
yet. Come now, Jeanie, ye are but queering us. I am no 
trowing that there is sic a ane in the warld ; ye are but making 
fashion. What is he ? wha is he ? ’ 

‘Just Reuben Butler, that’s schulemaster at Liberton,’ said 
Jeanie. 

‘ Reuben Butler ! Reuben Butler ! ’ echoed the Laird of 
Dumbiedikes, pacing the apartment in high disdain. ‘ Reuben 
Butler, the dominie at Liberton, and a dominie depute too ! 
Reuben, the son of my cottar ! Very weel, Jeanie, lass, wilfu’ 
woman will hae her way. Reuben Butler ! he hasna in his 
pouch the value o’ the auld black coat he wears, — but it disna 
signify.’ And, as he spoke, he shut successively, and with 
vehemence, the drawers of his treasury. ‘A fair offer, Jeanie, 
is nae cause of feud. Ae man may bring a horse to the water, 
but twenty wunna gar him drink. And as for wasting my 

substance on other folks’ joes ’ 

There was something in the last hint that nettled Jeanie’s 
honest pride. ‘ I was begging nane frae your honour,’ she said ; 
‘ least of a’ on sic a score as ye pit it on. Gude morning to ye, 
sir ; ye hae been kind to my father, and it isna in my heart to 
think otherwise than kindly of you.’ 

So saying, she left the room, without listening to a faint 
‘But, Jeanie — Jeanie — stay, woman !’and traversing the court- 
yard with a quick step, she set out on her forward journey, her 
bosom glowing with that natural indignation and shame which 
an honest mind feels at having subjected itself to ask a favour 
which had been unexpectedly refused. When out of the Laird’s 
ground, and once more upon the public road, her pace slackened. 


270 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


her anger cooled, and anxious anticipations of the consequence 
of this unexpected disappointment began to influence her with 
other feelings. Must she then actually beg her way to London ? 
for such seemed the alternative ; or must she turn back and 
solicit her father for money ; and by doing so lose time, which 
was precious, besides the risk of encountering his positive 
prohibition respecting her journey ? Yet she saw no medium 
between these alternatives ; and, while she walked slowly on, 
was still meditating whether it were not better to return. 

While she was thus in an uncertainty, she heard the clatter 
of a horse’s hoofs, and a well-known voice calling her name. 
She looked round, and saw advancing towards her on a pony, 
whose bare back and halter assorted ill with the nightgown, 
slippers, and laced cocked-hat of the rider, a cavalier of no less 
importance than Dumbiedikes himself. In the energy of his 
pursuit, he had overcome even the Highland obstinacy of Rory 
Bean, and compelled that self-willed palfrey to canter the way 
his rider chose ; which Rory, however, performed with all the 
symptoms of reluctance, turning his head, and accompanying 
every bound he made in advance with a side-long motion, which 
indicated his extreme wish to turn round — a manoeuvre which 
nothing but the constant exercise of the Laird’s heels and 
cudgel could possibly have counteracted. 

When the Laird came up with Jeanie, the first words he 
uttered were — ‘Jeanie, they say ane shouldna aye take a 
woman at her first word ? ’ 

‘Ay, but ye maun take me at mine, Laird,’ said Jeanie, 
looking on the ground, and walking on without a pause. ‘I 
hae but ae word to bestow on ony body, and that’s aye a 
true ane.’ 

‘Then,’ said Dumbiedikes, ‘at least ye suldna aye take a 
man at his first word. Ye maunna gang this wilfu’ gate siller- 
less, come o’t what like.’ He put a purse into her hand. ‘ I 
wad gie you Rory too, but he’s as wilfu’ as yoursell, and he’s 
ower weel used to a gate that maybe he and I hae gaen ower 
aften, and he’ll gang nae road else.’ 

‘But, Laird,’ said Jeanie, ‘though I ken my father will 
satisfy every penny of this siller, whatever there’s o’t, yet I 
wadna like to borrow it frae ane that maybe thinks of some- 
thing mair than the paying o’t back again.’ 

‘ There’s just twenty -five guineas o’t,’ said Dumbiedikes, 
with a gentle sigh, ‘ and whether your father pays or disna pay, 
I make ye free till’t without another word. Gang where ye 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


271 


like, do what ye like, and marry a’ the Butlers in the country 
gin ye like. And sae, gude morning to you, Jeanie.’ 

‘ And God bless you, Laird, wi’ mony a gude morning,’ said 
Jeanie, her heart more softened by the unwonted generosity of 
this uncouth character than perhaps Butler might have ap- 
proved, had he known her feelings at that moment ; ‘ and com- 
fort, and the Lord’s peace, and the peace of the world, be with 
you, if we suld never meet again ! ’ 

Dumbiedikes turned and waved his hand; and his pony, 
much more willing to return than he had been to set out, 
hurried him homewards so fast that, wanting the aid of a 
regular bridle, as well as of saddle and stirrups, he was too 
much puzzled to keep his seat to permit of his looking behind, 
even to give the parting glance of a forlorn swain. I am 
ashamed to say that the sight of a lover, run away with in 
nightgown and slippers and a laced hat, by a bare-backed High- 
land pony, had something in it of a sedative, even to a grate- 
ful and deserved burst of affectionate esteem. The figure of 
Dumbiedikes was too ludicrous not to confirm Jeanie in the 
original sentiments she entertained towards him. 

‘He’s a gude creature,’ said she, ‘and a kind ; it’s a pity he 
has sae willyard a powny.’ And she immediately turned her 
thoughts to the important journey which she had commenced, 
reflecting with pleasure that, according to her habits of life 
and of undergoing fatigue, she was now amply, or even super- 
fluously, provided with the means of encountering the expenses 
of the road up and down from London, and all other expenses 
whatever. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


What strange and wayward thoughts will slide 
Into a lover’s head ; 

‘ 0 mercy ! ’ to myself I cried, 

‘ If Lucy should be dead ! ’ 

Wordsworth. 

In pursuing her solitary journey, our heroine, soon after passing 
the house of Dumbiedikes, gained a little eminence, from which, 
on looking to the eastward down a prattling brook, whose 
meanders were shaded with straggling willows and alder-trees, 
she could see the cottages of Woodend and Beersheba, the 
haunts and habitation of her early life, and could distinguish 
the common on which she had so often herded sheep, and the 
recesses of the rivulet where she had pulled rushes with Butler, 
to plait crowns and sceptres for her sister EflSe, then a beauti- 
ful but spoiled child of about three years old. The recollections 
which the scene brought with them were so bitter that, had 
she indulged them, she would have sate down and relieved her 
heart with tears. 

‘ But I kenn’d,’ said Jeanie, when she gave an account of her 
pilgrimage, ‘ that greeting would do but little good, and that 
it was mair beseeming to thank the Lord, that had showed me 
kindness and countenance by means of a man that mony ca’d 
a Nabal and churl, but wha was free of his glides to me as 
ever the fountain was free of the stream. And I minded the 
Scripture about the sin of Israel at Meribah, when the people 
murmured, although Moses had brought water from the dry 
rock that the congregation might drink and live. Sae, I wad 
not trust my sell with another look at puir Woodend, for the 
very blue reek that came out of the lum-head pat me in mind 
of the change of market-days with us.’ 

In this resigned and Christian temper she pursued her 
journey, until she was beyond this place of melancholy recollec- 
tions, and not distant from the village where Butler dwelt, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


273 


which, with its old-fashioned church and steeple, rises among a 
tuft of trees, occupying the ridge of an eminence to the south 
of Edinburgh. At a quarter of a mile’s distance is a clumsy 
square tower, the residence of the Laird of Liberton, who, in 
former times, with the habits of the predatory chivalry of 
Germany, is said frequently to have annoyed the city of Edin- 
burgh by intercepting the supplies and merchandise which 
came to the town from the southward. 

This village, its tower, and its church, did not lie precisely 
in Jeanie’s road towards England; but they were not much 
aside from it, and the village was the abode of Butler. She 
had resolved to see him in the beginning of her journey, because 
she conceived him the most proper person to write to her father 
concerning her resolution and her hopes. There was probably 
another reason latent in her affectionate bosom. She wished 
once more to see the object of so early and so sincere an 
attachment, before commencing a pilgrimage, the perils of 
which she did not disguise from herself, although she did not 
allow them so to press upon her mind as to diminish the 
strength and energy of her resolution. A visit to a lover 
from a young person in a higher rank of life than Jeanie’s 
would have had something forward and improper in its 
character. But the simplicity of her rural habits was un- 
acquainted with these punctilious ideas of decorum, and no 
notion, therefore, of impropriety crossed her imagination as, 
setting out upon a long journey, she went to bid adieu to an 
early friend. 

There was still another motive that pressed upon her mind 
with additional force as she approached the village. She had 
looked anxiously for Butler in the court-house, and had expected 
that certainly, in some part of that eventful day, he would 
have appeared to bring such countenance and support as he 
could give to his old friend and the protector of his youth, even 
if her own claims were laid aside. She knew, indeed, that he 
was under a certain degree of restraint ; but she still had hoped 
that he would have found means to emancipate himself from it, 
at least for one day. In short, the wild and wayward thoughts 
which Wordsworth has described as rising in an absent lover’s 
imagination suggested, as the only explanation of his absence, 
that Butler must be very ill. And so much had this wrought 
on her imagination, that when she approached the cottage in 
w^hich her lover occupied a small apartment, and which had 
been pointed out to her by a maiden with a milk-pail on her 

VII 


274 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


head, she trembled at anticipating the answer she might receive 
on inquiring for him. 

Her fears in this case had, indeed, only hit upon the truth. 
Butler, whose constitution was naturally feeble, did not soon 
recover the fatigue of body and distress of mind which he had 
suffered in consequence of the tragical events with which our 
narrative commenced. The painful idea that his character 
was breathed on by suspicion was an aggravation to his 
distress. 

But the most cruel addition was the absolute prohibition 
laid by the magistrates on his holding any communication with 
Deans or his family. It had unfortunately appeared likely to 
them that some intercourse might be again attempted with 
that family by Robertson, through the medium of Butler, and 
this they were anxious to intercept, or prevent, if possible. 
The measure was not meant as a harsh or injurious severity on 
the part of the magistrates; but, in Butler’s circumstances, 
it pressed cruelly hard. He felt he must be suffering under 
the bad opinion of the person who was dearest to him, from 
an imputation of unkind desertion, the most alien to his 
nature. 

This painful thought, pressing on a frame already injured, 
brought on a succession of slow and lingering feverish attacks, 
which greatly impaired his health, and at length rendered him ' 
incapable even of the sedentary duties of the school, on which 
his bread depended. Fortunately, old Mr. Whackbairn, who 
was the principal teacher of the little parochial establishment, 
was sincerely attached to Butler. Besides that he was sensible 
of his merits and value as an assistant, which had greatly 
raised the credit of his little school, the ancient pedagogue, 
who had himself been tolerably educated, retained some taste 
for classical lore, and would gladly relax, after the drudgery of 
the school was past, by conning over a few pages of Horace or 
Juvenal with his usher. A similarity of taste begot kindness, 
and he accordingly saw Butler’s increasing debility with great 
compassion, roused up his own energies to teaching the school 
in the morning hours, insisted upon his assistant’s reposing 
himself at that period, and, besides, supplied him with such 
comforts as the patient’s situation required, and his own means 
were inadequate to compass. 

Such was Butler’s situation, scarce able to drag himself to 
the place where his daily drudgery must gain his daily bread, 
and racked with a thousand fearful anticipations concerning' 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


275 


the fate of those who were dearest to him in the world, when 
the trial and condemnation of Effie Deans put the copestone 
upon his mental misery. 

He had a particular account of these events from a fellow- 
student who resided in the same village, and who, having been 
present on the melancholy occasion, was able to place it in all 
its agony of horrors before his excruciated imagination. That 
sleep should have visited his eyes, after such a curfew-note, 
was impossible. A thousand dreadful visions haunted his 
imagination all night, and in the morning he was awaked 
from a feverish slumber by the only circumstance which could 
have added to his distress — the visit of an intrusive ass. 

This unwelcome visitant was no other than Bartoline Saddle- 
tree. The worthy and sapient burgher had kept his appoint- 
ment at MacCroskie’s, with Plumdamas and some other neigh- 
bours, to discuss the Duke of Argyle’s speech, the justice 
of Effie Deans’s condemnation, and the improbability of her 
obtaining a reprieve. This sage conclave disputed high and 
drank deep, and on the next morning Bartoline felt, as he 
expressed it, as if his head was like a ‘ confused progress of 
writs.’ 

To bring his reflective powers to their usual serenity. Saddle- 
tree resolved to take a morning’s ride upon a certain hackney 
which he, Plumdamas, and another honest shopkeeper com- 
bined to maintain by joint subscription, for occasional jaunts 
for the purpose of business or exercise. As Saddletree had two 
1 children boarded with Whackbairn, and was, as we have seen, 
rather fond of Butler’s society, he turned his palfrey’s head 
towards Liberton, and came, as we have already said, to give 
the unfortunate usher that additional vexation of which Imogen 
complains so feelingly when she says, 

1 I’m sprighted with a fool — 

Sprighted and anger’d worse. 

! If anything could have added gall to bitterness, it was the 
choice which Saddletree made of a subject for his prosing 
harangues, being the trial of Effie Deans, and the probability of 
her being executed. Every word fell on Butler’s ear like the 
knell of a death-bell or the note of a screech-owl. 

Jeanie paused at the door of her lover’s humble abode upon 
hearing the loud and pompous tones of Saddletree sounding 
from the inner apartment — ‘Credit me, it will be sae, Mr. 
Butler. Brandy cannot save her. She maun gang down the 


276 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Bow wi’ the lad in the pioted coat* at her heels. I am sorry 
for the lassie, but the law, sir, maun hae its course — 

Vi vat rex, 

Currat lex, 

as the poet has it, in whilk of Horace’s Odes I know not.’ 

Here Butler groaned, in utter impatience of the brutality 
and ignorance w^hich Bartoline had contrived to amalgamate 
into one sentence. But Saddletree, like other prosers, was 
blessed with a happy ob’tuseness of perception concerning the 
unfavourable impression which he generally made on his audi- 
tors. He proceeded to deal forth his scraps cf legal knowdedge 
without mercy, and concluded by asking Butler with great 
self-complacency, ‘Was it na a pity my father didna send me 
to Utrecht ? Havena I missed the chance to turn out as clar- 
issimus an ictus as auld Grunwiggin himsell ? What for dinna 
ye speak, Mr. Butler? Wad I no hae been a clarissimus ictus ? 
Eh, man?’ 

‘I really do not understand you, Mr. Saddletree,’ said 
Butler, thus pushed hard for an answer. His faint and ex- 
hausted tone of voice was instantly drowned in the sonorous 
bray of Bartoline. 

‘ No understand me, man ? Ictus is Latin for a lawyer, is it 
not ?’ 

‘ Not that ever I heard of,’ answered Butler, in the same 
dejected tone. 

‘ The deil ye didna ! See, man, I got the word but this 
morning out of a memorial of Mr. Crossmyloof ’s ; see, there it 
is, ictus clarissimus et perti — peritissimus ; it’s a’ Latin, for it’s 
printed in the Italian types.’ 

‘0, you mQdiXi juris -consulttis'i Ictus is an abbreviation for 
juris-consultus. ’ 

‘Dinna tell me, man,’ persevered Saddletree; ‘there’s nae 
abbreviates except in adjudications ; and this is a’ about a servi- 
tude of water -drap, that is to say, tillicidian \ — maybe ye’ll 
say that’s no Latin neither — in Mary King’s Close in the High 
Street.’ 

‘Very likely,’ said poor Butler, overwhelmed by the noisy 
perseverance of his visitor. ‘I am not able to dispute with 
you.’ 

* The executioner, in a livery of black or dark grey and silver, likened by low wit 
to a magpie. . 

t He meant, probably, stillicidium. ,] 




THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 

‘Few folk are — few folk are, Mr. Butler, though I say it 
that shouldna say it,’ returned Bartoline, with great delight. 

‘ Now, it will be twa hours yet or ye’re wanted in the schule, 
and as ye are no weel. I’ll sit wi’ you to divert ye, and explain 
t’ye the nature of a tillicidian. Ye maun ken, the petitioner, 
Mrs. Crombie, a very decent woman, is a friend of mine, and I 
hae stude her friend in this case, and brought her wi’ credit 
into the court, and I doubtna that in due time she will win out 
o’t wi’ credit, win she or lose she. Ye see, being an inferior 
tenement or laigh house, we grant ourselves to be burdened wi’ 
the tillicide^ that is, that we are obligated to receive the natural 
water-drap of the superior tenement, sae far as the same fa’s 
frae the heavens, or the roof of our neighbour’s house, and from 
thence by the gutters or eaves upon our laigh tenement. But 
the other night comes a Highland quean of a lass, and she 
flashes, God kens what, out at the eastmost window of Mrs. 
MacPhail’s house, that’s the superior tenement. I believe the 
auld women wad hae greed, for Luckie MacPhail sent down the 
lass to tell my friend Mrs. Crombie that she had made the 
gardyloo out of the wrang window, from respect for twa High- 
landmen that were speaking Gaelic in the close below the right 
ane. But luckily for Mrs. Crombie, I just chanced to come in 
in time to break aff the communing, for it’s a pity the point 
suldna be tried. We had Mrs. MacPhail into the Ten -Mark 
Court. The Hieland limmer of a lass wanted to swear herself 
free ; but “ Haud ye there,” says I ’ 

The detailed account of this important suit might have lasted 
until poor Butler’s hour of rest was completely exhausted, had 
not Saddletree been interrupted • by the noise of voices at the 
door. The^woman of the house where Butler lodged, on re- 
turning with her pitcher from the well, whence she had been 
fetching water for the family, found our heroine Jeanie Deans 
standing at the door, impatient of the prolix harangue of 
Saddletree, yet unwilling to enter until he should have taken 
his leave. 

The good woman abridged the period of hesitation by in- 
quiring, ‘ Was ye wanting the gudeman or me, lass ? ’ 

‘ I wanted to speak with Mr. Butler, if he’s at leisure,’ replied 
Jeanie. 

‘ Gang in bye then, my woman,’ answered the goodwife ; and 
opening the door of a room, she announced the additional visitor 
with — ‘ Mr. Butler, here’s a lass wants to speak t’ye.’ 

The surprise of Butler was extreme when Jeanie, who seldom 


278 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


stirred half a mile from home, entered his apartment upon this 
annunciation. 

‘ Good God ! ’ he said, starting from his chair, while alarm 
restored to his cheek the colour of which sickness had deprived 
it ; ‘ some new misfortune must have happened ! ’ 

‘None, Mr. Reuben, but what you must hae heard of ; but 
0, ye are looking ill yoursell ! ’ for ‘ the hectic of a moment ’ 
had not concealed from her affectionate eye the ravages which 
lingering disease and anxiety of mind had made in her lover’s 
person. 

‘No; I am well — quite well,’ said Butler, with eager- 
ness; ‘if I can do anything to assist you, Jeanie — or your 
father.’ 

‘ Ay, to be sure,’ said Saddletree ; ‘ the family may be con- 
sidered as limited to them twa now, just as if Effie had never 
been in the tailzie, puir thing. But, Jeanie, lass, what brings 
you out to Liberton sae air in the morning, and your father 
lying ill in the Luckenbooths h ’ 

‘I had a message frae my father to Mr. Butler,’ said Jeanie, 
with embarrassment; but instantly feeling ashamed of the 
fiction to which she had resorted, for her love of and veneration 
for truth was almost Quaker-like, she corrected herself — ‘ That 
is to say, I wanted to speak with Mr. Butler about some busi- 
ness of my father’s and puir Effie’s.’ 

‘ Is it law business ? ’ said Bartoline ; ‘ because, if it be, ye 
had better take my opinion on the subject than his.’ 

‘It is not just law business,’ said Jeanie, who saw consider- 
able inconvenience might arise from letting Mr. Saddletree into 
the secret purpose of her journey ; ‘ but I want Mr. Butler to 
write a letter for me.’ 

‘Very right,’ said Mr. Saddletree ; ‘and if ye’ll tell me what 
it is about, I’ll dictate to Mr. Butler as Mr. Crossmyloof does 
to his clerk. Get your pen and ink in initialihus, Mr. Butler.’ 

Jeanie looked at Butler, and wrung her hands with vexation 
and impatience. 

‘ I believe, Mr. Saddletree,’ said Butler, who saw the neces- 
sity of getting rid of him at all events, ‘ that Mr. Whackbairn 
will be somewhat affronted if you do not hear your boys called 
up to their lessons.’ 

‘ Indeed, Mr. Butler, and that’s as true ; and I promised to 
ask a half play-day to the schule, so that the bairns might gang 
and see the hanging, which canna but have a pleasing effect on 
their young minds, seeing there is no knowing what they may 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 279 

come to themselves. Odd so, I didna mind ye were here, Jeanie 
Deans ; but ye maun use yoursell to hear the matter spoken o’. 
Keep J eanie here till I come back, Mr. Butler ; I wunna bide 
ten minutes.’ 

And with this unwelcome assurance of an immediate return, 
he relieved them of the embarrassment of his presence. 

‘Reuben,’ said Jeanie, who saw the necessity of using the 
interval of his absence in discussing what had brought her there, 
‘ I am bound on a lang journey. I am gaun to Lunnon to ask 
Effie’s life of the king and of the queen.’ 

‘ J eanie ! you are surely not yourself,’ answered Butler, in 
the utmost surprise ; ‘ you go to London — you address the king 
and queen ! ’ 

‘And what for no, Reuben?’ said Jeanie, with all the com- 
posed simplicity of her character ; ‘ it’s but speaking to a mortal 
man and woman when a’ is done. And their hearts maun be 
made o’ flesh and blood like other folks’, and Eflie’s story wad 
melt them were they stane. Forbye, I hae heard that they are 
no sic bad folk as what the Jacobites ca’ them.’ 

‘Yes, Jeanie,’ said Butler; ‘but their magnificence, their 
retinue, the difiiculty of getting audience ? ’ 

‘ I have thought of a’ that, Reuben, and it shall not break 
my spirit. Nae doubt their claiths will be very grand, wi’ their 
crowns on their heads, and their sceptres in their hands, like 
the great King Ahasuerus when he sate upon his royal throne 
foranent the gate of his house, as -we are told in Scripture. 
But I have that within me that will keep my heart from failing, 
and I am amaist sure that I will be strengthened to speak the 
errand I came for.’ 

‘ Alas ! alas ! ’ said Butler, ‘ the kings nowadays do not sit 
in the gate to administer justice, as in patriarchal times. I 
know as little of courts as you do, Jeanie, by experience ; but 
by reading and report I know that the King of Britain does 
everything by means of his ministers.’ 

‘And if they be upright. God-fearing ministers,’ said Jeanie, 
‘ it’s sae muckle the better chance for Effie and me.’ 

‘ But you do not even understand the most ordinary words 
relating to a court,’ said Butler ; ‘ by the ministry is meant not 
clergymen, but the king’s official servants.’ 

‘ Nae doubt,’ returned Jeanie, ‘ he maun hae a great number, 
mair, I daur to say, than the Duchess has at Dalkeith ; and 
great folks’ servants are aye mair saucy than themselves. But 
I’ll be decently put on, and I’ll offer them a trifle o’ siller, as if I 


280 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


came to see the palace. Or, if they scruple that, 1 11 tell them 
I’m come on a business of life and death, and then they will 
surely bring me to speech of the king and queen ? ’ 

Butler shook his head. ‘ 0, Jeanie, this is entirely a wild 
dream. You can never see them but through some great lord s 
intercession, and I think it is scarce possible even then.’ 

‘Weel, but maybe I can get that too,’ said Jeanie, ‘with a | 
little helping from you.’ | 

‘From me, Jeanie ! this is the wildest imagination of all.’ j 
‘ Ay, but it is not, Reuben. Havena I heard you say that 
your grandfather, that my father never likes to hear about, ’ 
did some gude lang syne to the forbear of this MacCallummore, I 
when he was Lord of Lorn ? ’ . 

‘ He did so,’ said Butler, eagerly, ‘ and I can prove it. I 
will write to the Duke of Argyle — report speaks him a good 
kindly man, as he is known for a brave soldier and true patriot 
— I will conjure him to stand between your sister and this i 
cruel fate. There is but a poor chance of success, but we will 
try all means.’ 

‘ We must try all means,’ replied Jeanie ; ‘ but writing winna 
do it : a letter canna look, and pray, and beg, and beseech, as • 
the human voice can do to the human heart. A letter’s like 
the music that the ladies have for their spinets : naething but 
black scores, compared to the same tune played or sung. It’s 
word of mouth maun do it, or naething, Reuben.’ 

‘You are right,’ said Reuben, recollecting his firmness, ‘and 
I will hope that Heaven has suggested to your kind heart and 
firm courage the only possible means of saving the life of this 
unfortunate girl. But, Jeanie, you must not take this most 
perilous journey alone ; I have an interest in you, and I will 
not agree that my Jeanie throws herself away. You must, even 
in the present circumstances, give me a husband’s right to pro- 
tect you, and I will go with you myself on this journey, and 
assist you to do your duty by your family.’ 

‘ Alas, Reuben ! ’ said Jeanie in her turn, ‘ this must not be ; a 
pardon will not gie my sister her fair fame again, or make me a 
bride fitting for an honest man and an usefu’ minister. Wha 
wad mind what he said in the pu’pit, that had to wife the sister 
of a woman that was condemned for sic wickedness ? ’ 

‘ But, Jeanie,’ pleaded her lover, ‘ I do not believe, and I can- 
not believe, that Effie has done this deed.’ 

‘ Heaven bless you for saying sae, Reuben ! ’ answered Jeanie ; 

‘ but she maun bear the blame o’t, after all.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 1^81 

‘ But that blame, were it even justly laid on her, does not 
fall on you/ 

‘Ah, Reuben, Reuben,’ replied the young woman, ‘ye ken 
it is a blot that spreads to kith and kin. Ichabod, as my poor 
father says, the glory is departed from our house; for the 
poorest man’s house has a glory, where there are true hands, a 
divine heart, and an honest fame. And the last has gane frae 
us a’.’ 

‘But, Jeanie, consider your word and plighted faith to me; 
and would ye undertake such a journey without a man to 
protect you ? and who should that protector be but your 
husband ? ’ 

‘ You are kind and good, Reuben, and wad tak me Avi’ a’ my 
shame, I doubtna. But ye canna but own that this is no time 
to marry or be given in marriage. Na, if that suld ever be, it 
maun be in another and a better season. And, dear Reuben, 
.ye speak of protecting me on my journey. Alas ! who will pro- 
tect and take care of you? Your very limbs tremble with 
standing for ten minutes on the floor ; how could you under- 
take a journey as far as Lunnon ? ’ 

‘ But I am strong — I am well,’ continued Butler, sinking in 
his seat totally exhausted, ‘ at least I shall be quite well to- 
mori’ow.’ 

‘Ye see, and ye ken, ye maun just let me depart,’ said Jeanie, 
after a pause ; and then taking his extended hand, and gazing 
kindly in his face, she added, ‘ It’s e’en a grief the mair to me 
to see you in this way. But ye maun keep up your heart for 
Jeanie’s sake, for if she isna your wife, she will never be the 
wife of living man. And now gie me the paper for MacCallum- 
more, and bid God speed me on my way.’ 

There was something of romance in Jeanie’s venturous resolu- 
tion ; yet, on consideration, as it seemed impossible to alter it 
by persuasion, or to give her assistance but by advice, Butler, 
after some farther debate, put into her hands the paper she 
desired, which, with the muster-roll in which it was folded up, 
were the sole memorials of the stout and enthusiastic Bible 
Butler, his grandfather. While Butler sought this document, 
Jeanie had time to take up his pocket Bible. ‘I have marked 
a scripture,’ she said, as she again laid it down, ‘ with your 
keelyvine pen, that will be useful to us baith. And ye maun 
tak the trouble, Reuben, to write a’ this to my father, for, God 
help me, I have neither head nor hand for lang letters at ony 
time, forbye now ; and I trust him entirely to you, and I trust 


282 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


you will soon be permitted to see him. And, Reuben, when yer 
do Avin to the speech o’ him, mind a’ the auld man’s bits o’ ways,) 
for Jeanie’s sake; and dinna speak o’ Latin or English terms! 
to him, for he’s o’ the auld Avarld, and downa bide to be fashed 
wi’ them, though I daresay he may be AA^rang. And dinna ye 
say muckle to him, but set him on speaking himsell, for he’ll 
bring himsell mair comfort that Av^ay. And 0, Reuben, the 
poor lassie in yon dungeon ! — but I needna bid your kind heart 
— gie .her AV'hat comfort ye can as soon as they Avill let ye see 

her ; tell her But I mamma speak mair about her, for I 

maunna take leave o’ ye wi’ the tear in my ee, for that Avadna 
be canny. God bless ye, Reuben ! ’ 

To avoid so ill an omen she left the room hastily, Avhile her 
features yet retained the mournful and affectionate smile Avhich 
she had compelled them to Avear in order to support Butler’s 
spirits. 

It seemed as if the power of sight, of speech, and of reflec- 
tion had left him as she disappeared from the room, which 
she had entered and retired from so like an apparition. Saddle- 
tree, who entered immediately afterwards, overwhelmed him 
Avith questions, which he ansAvered Avithout understanding them, 
and with legal disquisitions, Avhich conveyed to him no iota of 
meaning. At length the learned burgess recollected that there 
Avas a baron court to be held at Loanhead that day, and though 
it Avas hardly Avorth while, ‘ he might as weel go to see if there 
Avas ony thing doing, as he was acquainted with the baron- 
bailie, who Avas a decent man, and Avould be glad of a word of 
legal advice.’ 

So soon as he departed, Butler flew to the Bible, the last 
book which Jeanie had touched. To his extreme surprise, a 
paper, containing two or three pieces of gold, dropped from the 
book. With a black-lead pencil she had marked the sixteenth 
and twenty -fifth verses of the thirty -seventh Psalm — ‘A little 
that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of the 
Avicked.’ ‘ I have been young and am now old, yet have I 
not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their 
bread.’ 

Deeply impressed with the affectionate delicacy which 
shrouded its own generosity under the cover of a providential 
supply to his wants, he pressed the gold to his lips with more 
ardour than ever the metal was greeted with by a miser. To 
emulate her devout firmness and confidence seemed now the 
pitch of his ambition, and his first task Avas to write an account 


THE HEART OE MIDLOTHIAN 


283 


to David Deans of his daughter’s resolution and journey south- 
ward. He studied every sentiment, and even every phrase, 
which he thought could reconcile the old man to her extra- 
ordinary resolution. The effect which this epistle produced 
will be hereafter adverted to. Butler committed it to the 
charge of an honest clown, who had frequent dealings with 
Deans in the sale of his dairy produce, and who readily under- 
took a journey to Edinburgh to put the letter into his own 
hands.* 

* By dint of assiduous research, I am enabled to certiorate the reader that the name 
of this person was Saunders Broadfoot, and that he dealt in the wholesome commodity 
called kirn-milk (Anglic6, butter-milk). — J. C. 


CHAPTEK XXVIII 


My native land, good night ! 

Lord Byron. 

In the present day, a journey from Edinburgh to London is a 
matter at once safe, brief, and simple, however inexperienced 
or unprotected the traveller. Numerous coaches of different 
rates of charge, and as many packets, are perpetually passing 
and repassing betwixt the capital of Britain and her northern 
sister, so that the most timid or indolent may execute such a 
journey upon a few hours’ notice. But it was different in 1737. 
So slight and infrequent was then the intercourse betwixt 
London and Edinburgh that men still alive remember, that 
upon one occasion the mail from the former city andved at the 
General Post-Office in Scotland with only one letter in it.* 
The usual mode of travelling was by means of post-horses, the 
traveller occupying one and his guide another, in which manner, 
by relays of horses from stage to stage, the journey might be 
accomplished in a wonderfully short time by those who could 
endure fatigue. To have the bones shaken to pieces by a 
constant change of those hacks was a luxury for the rich ; the 
poor were under the necessity of using the mode of conveyance 
with which nature had provided them. 

With a strong heart, and a frame patient of fatigue, Jeanie 
Deans, travelling at the rate of twenty miles a -day, and some- 
times farther, traversed the southern part of Scotland and 
advanced as far as Durham. 

Hitherto she had been either among her own country-folk, 
or those to whom her bare feet and tartan screen were objects 
too familiar to attract much attention. But as she advanced, 
she perceived that both circumstances exposed her to sarcasm 
and taunts which she might otherwise have escaped ; and 
although in her heart she thought it unkind and inhospitable 

* The fact is certain. The single epistle was addressed to the principal director of 
the British Linen Company. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


285 


to sneer at a passing stranger on account of the fashion of her 
attire, yet she had the good sense to alter those parts of her 
dress which attracted ill-natured observation. Her checqued 
screen was deposited carefully in her bundle, and she conformed 
to the national extravagance of wearing shoes and stockings 
for the whole day. She confessed afterwards that, ‘besides 
the wastrife, it was lang or she could walk sae comfortably with 
the shoes as without them; but there was often a bit saft 
heather by the roadside, and that helped her weel on.’ The 
want of the screen, which was drawn over the head like a veil, 
she supplied by a hon- grace, as she called it — a large straw 
bonnet, like those worn by the English maidens when labour- 
ing in the fields. ‘ But I thought unco shame o’ my sell,’ she 
said, ‘ the first time I put on a married woman’s hon-grace, and 
me a single maiden.’ 

With these changes she had little, as she said, to make ‘ her 
kenspeckle when she didna speak,’ but her accent and language 
drew down on her so many jests and gibes, couched in a worse 
patois by far than her own, that she soon found it was her 
interest to talk as little and as seldom as possible. She 
answered, therefore, civil salutations of chance passengers with 
a civil courtesy, and chose, with anxious circumspection, such 
places of repose as looked at once most decent and sequestered. 
She found the common people of England, although inferior in 
courtesy to strangers, such as was then practised in her own 
more unfrequented country, yet, upon the whole, by no means 
deficient in the real duties of hospitality. She readily obtained 
food, and shelter, and protection at a very moderate rate, which 
sometimes the generosity of mine host altogether declined, with 
a blunt apology — ‘ Thee hast a lang way afore thee, lass ; and 
I’se ne’er take penny out o’ a single woman’s purse ; it’s the 
best friend thou can have on the road.’ 

It often happened, too, that mine hostess was struck with 
‘ the tidy, nice Scotch body,’ and procured her an escort, or a 
cast in a waggon, for some part of the waj^ or gave her useful 
advice and recommendation respecting her resting-places. 

At York our pilgrim stopped for the best part of a day — 
partly to recruit her strength, partly because she had the 
good luck to obtain a lodging in an inn kept by a country- 
woman, partly to indite two letters to her father and Reuben 
Butler, an operation of some little difficulty, her habits being 
by no means tRose of literary composition. That to her father 
was in the following w'ords ; — 


286 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘Dearest Father, 

‘ I make my present pilgrimage more heavy and burden- 
some through the sad occasion to reflect that it is without 
your knowledge, which, God knows, was far contrary to my 
heart; for Scripture says that, “the vow of the daughter 
should not be binding without the consent of the father,’^ 
wherein it may be I have been guilty to tak this wearie 
journey without your consent. Nevertheless, it was borne in 
upon my mind that I should be an instrument to help my poor 
sister in this extremity of needcessity, otherwise I wad not, for 
wealth or for world’s gear, or for the haill lands of Da’keith 
and Lugton, have done the like o’ this, without your free will 
and knowledge. 0, dear father, as ye wad desire a blessing 
on my journey, and upon your household, speak a word or 
write a line of comfort to yon poor prisoner. If she has sinned, 
she has sorrowed and suffered, and ye ken better than me that 
we maun forgie others, as we pray to be forgien. Dear father, 
forgive my saying this muckle, for it doth not become a young 
head to instruct grey hairs ; but I am sae far frae ye, that my 
heart yearns to ye a’, and fain wad I hear that ye had forgien 
her trespass, and sae I nae doubt say mair than may become 
me. . The folk here are civil, and, like the barbarians unto the 
holy apostle, hae shown me much kindness ; and there are a 
sort of chosen people in the land, for they hae some kirks with- 
out organs that are like ours, and are called meeting-houses, 
where the minister preaches without a gown. But most of the 
country are prelatists, whilk is awfu’ to think ; and I saw twa 
men that were ministers following hunds, as bauld as Roslin or 
Driden, the young Laird of Loup- the-D ike, or ony wild gallant 
in Lothian. A sorrowfu’ sight to behold ! 0, dear father, 

may a blessing be with your down-lying and up-rising, and 
remember in your prayers your affectionate daughter to 
command, Jean Deans.’ 

A postscript bore — ‘I learned from a decent woman, a 
grazier’s widow, that they hae a cure for the muir-ill in Cum- 
berland, whilk is ane pint, as they ca’t, of yill — whilk is a dribble 
in comparison of our gawsie Scots pint, and hardly a mutchkin 
— boil’d wi’ sope and hartshorn draps, and toomed doun the 
creature’s throat wi’ ane whom. Ye might try it on the 
bauson -faced year-auld quey; an it does nae glide, it can do 
nae ill. She was a kind woman, and seemed skeely about 
homed beasts. When I reach Lunnon, I intend to gang to 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


287 


our cousin Mistress Glass, the tobacconist, at the sign o’ the 
Thistle, wha is so ceevil as to send you down your spleuchan-fu’ 
anes a-year; and as she must be weel kenn’d in Lunnon, I 
doubt not easily to find out where she lives.’ 

Being seduced into betraying our heroine’s confidence thus 
far, we will stretch our communication a step beyond, and im- 
part to the reader her letter to her lover. 

‘Mr. Reuben Butler, 

‘ Hoping this will find you better, this comes to say, that 
I have reached this great town safe, and am not wearied with 
Avalking, but the better for it. And I have seen many things 
which I trust to tell you one day, also the muckle kirk of this 
place; and all around the city are mills, whilk.havena muckle 
wheels nor mill-dams, but gang by the wind — strange to behold. 
Ane miller asked me to gang in and see it work, but I wad not, 
for I am not come to the south to make- acquaintance with 
strangers. I keep the straight road, and just beck if ony body 
speaks to me ceevilly, and answers naebody with the tong but 
women of mine ain sect. I wish, Mr. Butler, I kenn’d ony thing 
that wad mak ye weel, for they hae mair medicines in this town 
of York than wad cure a’ Scotland, and surely some of them 
wad be glide for your complaints. If ye had a kindly motherly 
body to nurse ye, and no to let ye waste yoursell wi’ reading — 
whilk ye read mair than eneugh with the bairns in the schule 
— and to gie ye warm milk in the morning, I wad be mair easy 
for ye. Dear Mr. Butler, keep a good heart, for we are in the 
hands of Ane that kens better what is gude for us than we ken 
what is for oursells. I hae nae doubt to do that for which I 
am come : I canna doubt it — I winna think to doubt it ; be- 
cause, if I haena full assurance, how shall I bear myself with 
earnest entreaties in the great folks’ presence? But to ken 
that ane’s purpose is right, and to make their heart strong, is 
the way to get through the warst day’s darg. The bairns’ 
rime says,* the warst blast of the borrowing days * couldna kill 
the three silly poor hog-lambs. And if it be God’s pleasure, we 
that are sindered in sorrow may meet again in joy, even on this 
hither side of Jordan. I dinna bid ye mind what I said at our 
partin’ anent my poor father and that misfortiniate lassie, for 
1 ken you ivill do sae for the sake of Christian charity, whilk 
is mair than the entreaties of her that is your servant to 
command, Jeanie Deans.’ 

* See Note 29. 


288 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


This letter also had a postscript. ‘ Dear Reuben, If ye think 
that it wad hae been right for me to have said mair and kinder 
things to ye, just think that I hae written sae, since I am sure 
that I wish a’ that is kind and right to ye and by ye. Ye will 
think I am turned waster, for I wear clean hose and shoon 
every day ; but it’s the fashion here for decent bodies, and 
ilka land has its" ain lauch. Ower and aboon a’, if laughing 
days were e'er to come back again till us, ye wad laugh weel 
to see my round face at the far end of a strae hon-grace^ that 
looks as muckle and round as the middell aisle in Liberton 
kirk. But it sheds the sun weel aff, and keeps unceevil folk 
frae staring as if ane were a worriecow. I sail tell ye by writ 
how I come on wi’ the Duke of Argyle, when I w^on up to 
Lunnon. Direct a line, to say how ye are, to me, to the charge 
of Mrs. Margaret Glass, tobacconist, at the sign of the Thistle, - 
Lunnon, whilk, if it assures me of your health, will make my 
mind sae muckle easier. Excuse bad spelling and writing, as 
I have ane ill pen.’ 

The orthography of these epistles may seem to the southron 
to require a better apology than the letter expresses, though a 
bad pen was the excuse of a certain Galwegian laird for bad 
spelling ; but, on behalf of the heroine, I would have them to 
know that, thanks to the care of Butler, Jeanie Deans wrote 
and spelled fifty times better than half the women of mnk in 
Scotland at that period, whose strange orthography and singular - 
diction form the strongest contrast to the good sense which their 
correspondence usually intimates. 

For the rest, in the tenor of these epistles, Jeanie expressed, 
perhaps, more hopes, a firm.er courage, and better spirits than 
she actually felt. But this was with the amiable idea of reliev- 
ing her father and lover from apprehensions on her account, 
which she was sensible must greatly add to their other troubles. 
‘If they think me weel, and like to do weel,’ said the poor 
pilgrim to herself, ‘ my father will be kinder to Effie, and Butler 
will be kinder to himself. For I ken weel that they will think 
mair o’ me than I do o’ mysell.’ 

Accordingly, she sealed her letters carefully, and put them 
into the post-office with her own hand, after many inquiries con- 
cerning the time in which they were likely to reach Edinburgh. 
When this duty was performed, she readily accepted her land- 
lady’s pressing invitation to dine with her, and remain till the 
next morning. The hostess, as we have said, was her country- 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


289 


woman, and the eagerness with which Scottish people meet, 
communicate, and, to the extent of their power, assist each 
other, although it is often objected to us as a prejudice and 
narrowness of sentiment, seems, on the contrary, to arise from a 
most justifiable and honourable feeling of patriotism, combined 
with a conviction, which, if undeserved, would long since have 
been confuted by experience, that the habits and principles of 
the nation are a sort of guarantee for the character of the 
individual. At any rate, if the extensive influence of this 
national partiality be considered as an additional tie, binding 
man to man, and calling forth the good offices of such as can 
render them to the countryman who happens to need them, we 
think it must be found to exceed, as an active and efficient 
motive to generosity, that more impartial and wider principle 
of general benevolence, which we have sometimes seen pleaded 
as an excuse for assisting no individual whatever. 

Mrs. Bickerton, lady of the ascendant of the Seven Stars, in 
the Castle Gate, York, was deeply infected with the unfortunate 
prejudices of her country. Indeed, she displayed so much 
kindness to Jeanie Beans (because she herself, being a Merse 
woman, ‘ marched ’ with Midlothian, in which Jeanie was born), 

I showed such motherly regard to her, and such anxiety for her 
farther progress, that Jeanie thought herself safe, though by 
' temper sufficiently cautious, in communicating her whole story 
! to her. 

Mrs. Bickerton raised her hands and eyes at the recital, and 
exhibited much wonder and pity. But she also gave some 
effectual good advice. 

She required to know the strength of Jeanie’s purse, reduced 
by her deposit at Liberton and the necessary expense of her 
journey to about fifteen pounds. ‘ This,’ she said, ‘ would do 
very well, providing she could carry it a’ safe to London.’ 

‘ Safe ! ’ answered Jeanie. ‘ I’se warrant my carrying it safe, 
bating the needful expenses.’ 

‘Ay, but highwaymen, lassie,’ said Mrs. Bickerton ; ‘for ye 
are come into a more civilised, that is to say, a more roguish, 
country than the north, and how ye are to get forward I do not 
profess to know. If ye could wait here eight days, our waggons 
would go up, and I would recommend you to Joe Broad wheel, 
who would see you safe to the Swan and Two Necks. And 
dinna sneeze at Joe, if he should be for drawing up wi’ you,’ 
continued Mrs. Bickerton, her acquired English mingling with 
her national or original dialect ; ‘ he’s a handy boy, and a wanter, 

19 


VII 


290 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


and no lad better thought o’ on the road ; and the English 
make good husbands enough, witness my poor man, Moses 
Bickerton, as is i’ the kirkyard.’ 

Jeanie hastened to say that she could not possibly wait for 
the setting forth of Joe Broad wheel ; being internally by no 
means gratified with the idea of becoming the object of his 
attention during the journey. 

‘ Aweel, lass,’ answered the good landlady, ‘ then thou must 
pickle in thine ain poke-nook, and buckle thy girdle thine ain 
gate. But take my advice, and hide thy gold in thy stays, and 
keep a piece or two and some silver, in case thou be’st spoke 
withal ; for there’s as wud lads haunt within a day’s walk from 
hence as on the Braes of Doune in Perthshire. And, lass, thou 
maunna gang staring through Lunnon, asking wha kens Mrs. 
Glass at the sign o’ the Thistle ; many, they would laugh thee 
to scorn. But gang thou to this honest man,’ and she put a 
direction into Jeanie’s hand, ‘ he kens maist part of the sponsible 
Scottish folk in the city, and he will find out your friend for thee.’ 

Jeanie took the little introductory letter with sincere thanks ; 
but, something alarmed on the subject of the highway robbers, 
her mind recurred to what Ratcliffe had mentioned to her, and 
briefly relating the circumstances which placed a document so ^ 
extraordinary in her hands, she put the paper he had given her 
into the hand of Mrs. Bickerton. 

The Lady of the Seven Stars did not, indeed, ring a bell, 
because such was not the fashion of the time, but she whistled i 
on a silver-call, which was hung by her side, and a tight serving- j 
maiden entered the room. 

‘ Tell Dick Ostler to come here,’ said Mrs. Bickerton. 

Dick Ostler accordingly made his appearance — a queer, know- j 
ing, shambling animal, with a hatchet-face, a squint, a game arm, 
and a limp. 

‘Dick Ostler,’ said Mrs. Bickerton, in a tone of authority j 
that showed she was, at least by adoption, Yorkshire too, j 
‘ thou knowest most people and most things o’ the road.’ 

‘ Eye, eye, God help me, mistress,’ said Dick, shrugging his 
shoulders betwixt a repentant and a knowing expression — 

‘ eye ! I ha’ know’d a thing or twa i’ ma day, mistress.’ He 
looked sharp and laughed, looked grave and sighed, as one 
who was prepared to take the matter either way. 

‘Kenst thou this wee bit paper amang the rest, man?’ said 
Mrs. Bickerton, handing him the protection which Ratcliffe had 
given Jeanie Deans. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


291 


When Dick had looked at the paper, he winked with one 
eye, extended his grotesque mouth from ear to ear, like a 
navigable canal, scratched his head powerfully, and then said, 
‘ Ken ! Ay, maybe we ken summat, an it werena for harm to 
him, mistress.’ 

‘None in the world,’ said Mrs. Bickerton; ‘only a dram of 
Hollands to thyself, man, an thou will’t speak.’ 

‘ Why, then,’ said Dick, giving the heaiband of his breeches 
a knowing hoist with one hand, and kicking out one foot behind 
him to accommodate the adjustment of that important habili- 
ment, ‘ I dares to say the pass will be kenn’d weel eneugh on the 
road, an that be all.’ 

‘ But what sort of a lad was he ? ’ said Mrs. Bickerton, wink- 
ing to Jeanie, as proud of her knowing hostler. 

‘Why, what ken I ? Jim the Rat ! why he was cock o’ the 
North within this twelmonth, he and Scotch Wilson, Handle 
Dandle, as they called him. But he’s been out o’ this country 
a while, as I rackon ; but ony gentleman as keeps the road o’ 
this side Stamford will respect Jim’s pass.’ 

Without asking farther questions, the landlady filled Dick 
Ostler a bumper of Hollands. He ducked with his head and 
shoulders, scraped with his more advanced hoof, bolted the 
alcohol, to use the learned phrase, and withdrew to his own 
domains. 

‘I w’ould advise thee, Jeanie,’ said Mrs. Bickerton, ‘an thou 
meetest with ugly customers o’ the road, to show them this bit 
paper, for it will serve thee, assure thyself.’ 

A neat little supper concluded the evening. The exported 
Scotswoman, Mrs. Bickerton by name, eat heartily of one or 
two seasoned dishes, drank some sound old ale, and a glass of 
stiff negus, while she gave Jeanie a history of her gout, admir- 
ing how it was possible that she, whose fathers and mothers 
for many generations had been farmers in Lammermuir, could 
have come by a disorder so totally unknown to them. Jeanie 
did not choose to offend her friendly landlady by speaking her 
mind on the probable origin of this complaint ; but she thought 
on the flesh-pots of Egypt, and, in spite of all entreaties to 
better fare, made her evening meal upon vegetables, with a 
glass of fair water. 

Mrs. Bickerton assured her that the acceptance of any 
reckoning was entirely out of the question, furnished her with 
credentials to her correspondent in London, and to several inns 
upon the road where she had some influence or interest, re- 


292 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


minded her of the precautions she should adopt for concealing 
her money, and, as she was to depart early in the morning, took 
leave of her very affectionately, taking her word that she would 
visit her on her return to Scotland, and tell her how she had 
managed, and that summum honum for a gossip, ‘ all how and 
about it.’ This Jeanie faithfully promised. 


1 

\ 


CHAPTER XXIX 


And Need and Misery, Vice and Danger, bind, 

In sad alliance, each degraded mind. 

As our traveller set out early on the ensuing morning to pro- 
secute her journey, and was in the act of leaving the inn-yard, 
Dick Ostler, who either had risen early or neglected to go to 
bed, either circumstance being equally incident to his calling, 
hallooed out after her — ‘The top of the morning to you. 
Moggie ! Have a care o’ Gunnerby Hill, young one. Robin 
Hood’s dead and gwone, but there be takers yet in the vale of 
Beever.’ Jeanie looked at him as if to request a further ex- 
planation, but, with a leer, a shuffle, and a shrug, inimitable 
(unless by Emery), Dick turned again to the raw-boned steed 
whicli he was currying, and sung as he employed the comb and 
brush — 

‘ Robin Hood was a yeoman good. 

And his bow "was of trusty yew ; 

And if Robin said stand on the king’s lea-land. 

Pray, why should not we say so too ? ’ 

Jeanie pursued her journey without farther inquiry, for there 
was nothing in Dick’s manner that inclined her to prolong their 
conference. A painful day’s journey brought her to Ferry- 
bridge, the best inn, then and since, upon the great northern 
road ; and an introduction from Mrs. Bickerton, added to her 
own simple and quiet manners, so propitiated the landlady of 
the Swan in her favour that the good dame procured her the 
convenient accommodation of a pillion and post-horse then re- 
turning to Tuxford ; so that she accomplished, upon the second 
day after leaving York, the longest journey she had yet made. 
She was a good deal fatigued by a mode of travelling to which 
she was less accustomed than to walking, and it was consider- 
ably later than usual on the ensuing morning that she felt 
herself able to resume her pilgrimage. At noon the hundred- 


294 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


armed Trent, and tlie blackened ruins of Newark Castle, de- 
molished in the great Civil War, lay before her. It may easily 
be supposed that Jeanie had no curiosity to make antiquarian 
researches, but, entering the town, went straight to the inn to 
which she had been directed at Ferrybridge. While she pro- 
cured some refreshment, she observed the girl who brought it 
to her looked at her several times with fixed and peculiar 
interest, and at last; to her infinite surprise, inquired if her 
name was not Deans, and if she was not a Scotchwoman, going 
to London upon justice business. Jeanie, with all her sim- 
plicity of character, had some of the caution of her country, 
and, according to Scottish universal custom, she answered the 
question by another, requesting the girl would tell her why she 
asked these questions. 

The Mari tomes of the Saracen’s Head, Newark, replied, ‘ Two 
women had passed that morning, who had made inquiries after 
one Jeanie Deans, travelling to London on such an errand, and 
could scarce be persuaded that she had not passed on.’ 

Much surprised, and somewhat alarmed, for what is in- 
explicable is usually alarming, Jeanie questioned the wench 
about the particular appearance of these two women, but could 
only learn that the one Avas aged and the other young ; that 
the latter was the taller, and that the former spoke most, and 
seemed to maintain an authority over her companion, and that 
both spoke Avith the Scottish accent. 

This conveyed no information Avdiatever, and Avith an in- 
describable presentiment of evil designed toAv^ards her, Jeanie 
adopted the resolution of taking post-horses for the next stage. 
In this, however, she coidd not be gratified ; some accidental 
circumstances had occasioned A\diat is called a run upon the 
road, and the landlord could not accommodate her Avith a guide 
and horses. After Avaiting some time, in hopes that a pair of 
horses that had gone southward Avould return in time for her 
use, she at length, feeling ashamed of her OAvn pusillanimity, 
resolved to prosecute her journey in her usual manner. 

‘It Avas all plain road,’ she Avas assured, ‘except a high 
mountain, called Gunnerby Hill, about three miles from 
Grantham, which was her stage for the night.’ 

‘I’m glad to hear there’s a hill,’ said Jeanie, ‘for baith my 
sight and my very feet are weary o’ sic tracts o’ level ground ; 
it looks a’ the way between this and York as if a’ the land had 
been trenched and levelled, whilk is very wearisome to my 
Scotch een. When I lost sight of a muckle blue hill they 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


295 


ca’ Ingleboro’, I thought I hadna a friend left in this strange 
land.’ ^ 

‘As for the matter of that, 3*oung woman,’ said mine host, 
‘ an you be so fond o’ hill, I carena an thou couldst carry 
Gunnerby away with thee in thy lap, for it’s a murder to post- 
horses. But here’s to thy journey, and mayst thou win well 
through it, for thou is a bold and a canny lass.’ 

So saying, he took a powerful pull at a solemn tankard of 
home-brewed ale. 

‘ I hope there is nae bad company on the road, sir ? ’ said 
Jeanie. 

^ ‘ Why, when it’s clean without them I’ll thatch Groby pool 
wi’ pancakes. But there arena sae mony now ; and since they 
hae lost Jim the Rat, they hold together no better than the 
men of Marsham when they lost their common. Take a drop 
ere thou goest,’ he concluded, offering her the tankard ; ‘ thou 
wilt get naething at night save Grantham gruel, nine grots and 
a gallon of water.’ 

Jeanie courteously declined the tankard, and inquired what 
was her ‘ lawing.’ 

‘ Thy lawing ! Heaven help thee, wench ! what ca’st thou 
that ? ’ 

‘It is — I was wanting to ken what was to pay,’ replied 
Jeanie. 

‘ Pay ! Lord help thee ! why, nought, woman ; we hae 
drawn no liquor but a gill o’ beer, and the Saracen’s Head can 
spare a mouthful o’ meat to a stranger like o’ thee, that cannot 
speak Christian language. So here’s to thee once more. “ The 
same again, quoth Mark of Bellgrave,” ’ and he took another 
profound pull at the tankard. 

The travellers who have visited Newark more lately will 
not fail to remember the remarkably civil and gentlemanly 
manners of the person who now keeps the principal inn there, 
and may find some amusement in contrasting them with those 
of his more rough predecessor. But we believe it will be found 
that the polish has worn off none of the real worth of the 
metal. 

Taking leave of her Lincolnshire Gains, Jeanie resumed her 
solitary walk, and was somewhat alarmed when evening and 
twilight overtook her in the open ground which extends to the 
foot of Gunnerby Hill, and is intersected with patches of copse 
and with swampy spots. The extensive commons on the north 
road, most of which are now inclosed, and in general a relaxed 


296 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


state of police, exposed the traveller to a highway robbery in 
a degree which is now unknown, excepting in the immediate 
vicinity of the metropolis. Aware of this circumstance, Jeanie 
mended her pace when she heard the trampling of a horse 
behind, and instinctively drew to one side of the road, as if to 
allow as much room for the rider to pass as might be ppssible. 
When the animal came up, she found that it was bearing two 
women, the one placed on a side-saddle, the other on a pillion 
behind her, as may still occasionally be seen in England. 

‘A braw gude night to ye, Jeanie Deans,’ said the foremost 
female, as the horse passed our heroine. ‘What think ye o’ 
yon bonny hill yonder, lifting its brow to the moon ? Trow ye 
yon’s the gate to Heaven, that ye are sae fain of Maybe we 
may win there the night yet, God sain us, though our minnie 
here’s rather dreich in the upgang.’ 

The speaker kept changing her seat in the saddle, and half- 
stopping the horse, as she brought her body round, while the 
woman that sate behind her on the pillion seemed to urge her 
on, in words which Jeanie heard but imperfectly. 

‘Haud your tongue, ye moon -raised b ! what is your 

business with , or with Heaven or Hell either ? ’ 

‘ Troth, mither, no muckle wi’ Heaven, I doubt, considering 
wha I caiTy ahint me ; and as for Hell, it will fight its ain battle 
at its ain time, I’se be bound. Come, naggie, trot awa’, man, 
an as thou wert a broomstick, for a witch rides thee — 

With my curch on my foot, and my shoe on my hand, 

1 glance like the wildfire throngh brugh and through land.’ 

The tramp of the horse, and the increasing distance, drowned 
the rest of her song, but Jeanie heard for some time the in- 
articulate sounds ring along the waste. 

Our pilgrim remained stupified with undefined apprehensions. 
The being named by her name in so wild a manner, and in a 
strange country, without further explanation or communing, 
by a person who thus strangely flitted forward and disappeared 
before her, came near to the supernatural sounds in Comm : 

The airy tongues, which syllable men’s names 
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses. 

And although widely diflerent in features, deportment, and rank 
from the Lady of that enchanting masque, the continuation of 
the passage may be happily applied to Jeanie Deans upon this 
singular alarm ; 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


297 


These thoughts may startle well, but not astound 
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended 
By a strong siding champion — Conscience. 

In fact, it was, with the recollection of the affectionate and 
dutiful errand on which she was engaged, her right, if such a 
word could be applicable, to expect protection in a task so merit- 
orious. She had not advanced much farther, with a mind 
calmed by these reflections, when she was disturbed by a new 
and more instant subject of terror. Two meri, who had been 
lurking among some copse, started up as she advanced, and 
met her on the road in a menacing manner. ‘ Stand and deliver,’ 
said one of them, a short stout fellow, in a smock-frock, sucli 
as are worn by waggoners. 

‘The woman,’ said the other, a tall thin figure, ‘does not 
understand the words of action. Your money, my precious, or 
your life ! ’ 

‘I have but very little money, gentlemen,’ said poor Jeanie, 
tendering that portion which she had separated from her prin- 
cipal stock, and kept apart for such an emergency ; ‘ but if you 
are resolved to have it, to be sure you must have it.’ 

‘ This won’t do, my girl. D — n me, if it shall pass ! ’ said 
' the shorter ruffian ; ‘ do ye think gentlemen are to hazard their 
lives on the road to be cheated in this way? We’ll have every 
farthing you have got, or we will strip you to the skin, curse me.’ 

. His companion, who seemed to have something like com- 
! passion for the horror which Jeanie’s countenance now expressed, 

■ said, ‘ No, no, Tom, this is one of the precious sisters, and we’ll 
take her word, for once, without putting her to the stripping 
\ proof. Hark ye, my lass, if you’ll look up to heaven and say 
I this is the last penny you have about ye, why, hang it, we’ll let 
you pass.’ 

‘I am not free,’ answered Jeanie, ‘to say what I have about 
me, gentlemen, for there’s life and death depends on my journey; 
but if you leave me as much as finds me in bread and water. I’ll 
be satisfied, and thank you, and pray for you.’ 

‘ D — n your prayers ! ’ said the shorter fellow ; ‘ that’s a coin 
that won’t pass with us ’ ; and at the same time made a motion 
to seize her. 

‘ Stay, gentlemen,’ Ratclifle’s pass suddenly occurring to her ; 

‘ perhaps you know this paper.’ 

‘What the devil is she after now, Frank?’ said the more 
savage ruffian. ‘ Do you look at it, for d — n me if I could read 
it, if it were for the benefit of my clergy.’ 


298 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ This is a jark from Jim Ratcliffe,’ said the taller, having 
looked at the bit of paper. ‘The wench must pass by our 
cutter’s law.’ 

‘ I say no,’ answered his companion. ‘ Rat has left the lay, 
and turned bloodhound, they say.’ 

‘ We may need a go(^ turn from him all the same,’ said the 
taller ruffian again. 

‘ But what are we to do then ’ said the shorter man. ‘ We 
promised, you know, to strip the wench and send her begging- 
back to her own beggarly country, and now you are for letting 
her go on.’ 

‘ I did not say that,’ said the other fellow, and whispered to 
his companion, who replied, ‘ Be alive about it then, and don’t 
keep chattering till some travellers come up to nab us.’ 

‘ You must follow us off the road, young woman,’ said the 
taller. 

‘For the love of God ! ’ exclaimed Jeanie, ‘as you were born 
of woman, dinna ask me to leave the road ! rather take all I 
have in the world.’ 

‘What the devil is the wench afraid of?’ said the other 
fellow. ‘ I tell you you shall come to no harm ; but if you will 
not leave the road and come with us, d — n me, but I’ll beat 
your brains out where you stand.’ 

‘Thou art a rough bear, Tom,’ said his companion. ‘An ye 
touch her. I’ll give ye a shake by the collar shall make the 
Leicester beans rattle in thy guts. Never mind him, girl ; I 
will not allow him to lay a finger on you, if you walk quietly on 
with us ; but if you keep jabbering there, d — n me, but I’ll 
leave him to settle it with you.’ 

This threat conveyed all that is terrible to the imagination 
of poor Jeanie, who saw in him that ‘ was of milder mood ’ her 
only protection from the most brutal treatment. She, there- 
fore, not only followed him, but even held him by the sleeve, 
lest he should escape from her ; and the fellow, hardened as he 
was, seemed something touched by these marks of confidence, 
and repeatedly assured her that he would suffer her to receive 
no harm. 

They conducted their prisoner in a direction leading more 
and more from the public road, but she observed that they kept 
a sort of track or bye-path, which relieved her from part of her 
apprehensions, which would have been greatly increased had 
they not seemed to follow a determined and ascertained route. 
After about half an hour’s walking, all three in profound silence, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 299 

they approached an old barn, which stood on the edge of some 
cultivated ground, but remote from everything like a habita- 
tion. It was itself, however, tenanted, for there was light in 
the windows. 

One of the footpads scratched at the door, which was opened 
by a female, and they entered with their unhappy prisoner. 
An old woman, who was preparing food by the assistance of a 
stifling fire of lighted charcoal, asked them, in the name of the 
devil, what they brought the wench there for, and why they 
did not strip her and turn her abroad on the common. 

‘Come, come. Mother Blood,’ said the tall man, ‘we’ll do 
what’s right to oblige you, and we’ll do no more ; we are bad 
enough, but not such as you would make us — devils in- 
carnate.’ 

‘ She has got a jark from Jim Ratcliffe,’ said the short fellow, 
‘and Frank here won’t hear of our putting her through the 
mill.’ 

‘ No, that will I not, by G — d ! ’ answered Frank ; ‘ but if 
old Mother Blood could keep her here for a little while, or send 
her back to Scotland, without hurting her, why, I see no harm 
in that, not L’ 

‘ I’ll tell you what, Frank Levitt,’ said the old woman, ‘ if 
you call me Mother Blood again. I’ll paint this gulley (and she 
held a knife up as if about to make good her threat) in the 
best blood in your body, my bonny boy.’ 

‘ The price of ointment must be up in the north,! said Frank, 
‘that puts Mother Blood so much out of humour.’ 

Without a moment’s hesitation the fury darted her knife at 
him wdtli the vengeful dexterity of a wild Indian. As he was 
on his guard, he avoided the missile by a sudden motion of his 
head, but it whistled past his ear and stuck deep in the clay 
wall of a partition behind. 

‘Come, come, mother,’ said the robber, seizing her by both 
wrists, ‘ I shall teach you who’s master ’ ; and so saying, he 
forced the hag backwards by main force, who strove vehemently 
until she sunk on a bunch of straw, and then letting go her 
hands, he held up his finger towards her in the menacing posture 
by which a maniac is intimidated by his keeper. It appeared 
to produce the desired effect ; for she did not attempt to rise 
from the seat on which he had placed her, or to resume any 
measures of actual violence, but wmng her withered hands with 
impotent rage, and brayed and howled like a demoniac. 

‘ I will keep my promise wdth you, you old devil,’ said Frank ; 


300 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ the wench shall not go forward on the London road, but I will 
not have you touch a hair of her head, if it were but for your 
insolence.’ 

This intimation seemed to compose in some degree the 
vehement passion of the old hag ; and while her exclamations 
and howls sunk into a low, maundering, growling tone of voice, 
another personage was added to this singular party. | 

‘ Eh, Frank Levitt,’ said this new-comer, who entered with 
a hop, step, and jump, which at once conveyed her from the i 
door into the centre of the party, ‘ were ye killing our mother ? i 
or were ye cutting the grunter’s weasand that Tam brought in 
this morning ? or have ye been reading your prayers backward, 
to bring up my auld acquaintance the deil amang ye ? ’ 

The tone of the speaker was so particular that Jeanie im- 
mediately recognised the woman who had rode foremost of the 
pair which passed her just before she met the robbers ; a cir- 
cumstance which greatly increased her terror, as it served to 
show that the mischief designed against her was premeditated, 
though by whom, or for what cause, she was totally at a loss 
to conjecture. From the style of her conversation, the reader 
also may probably acknowledge in this female an old acquaint- 
ance in the earlier part of our narrative. 

‘ Out, ye mad devil ! ’ said Tom, whom she had disturbed in 
the middle of a draught of some liquor with which he had found 
means of accommodating himself ; ‘ betwixt your Bess of Bedlam 
pranks and. your dam’s frenzies a man might live quieter in 
the devil’s den than here.’ And he again resumed the broken 
jug out of which he had been drinking. 

‘ And what’s this o’t ? ’ said the madwoman, dancing up to 
Jeanie Deans, who, although in great terror, yet watched the 
scene with a resolution to let nothing pass unnoticed which 
might be serviceable in assisting her to escape, or informing her 
as to the true nature of her situation, and the danger attending 
it. ‘ What’s this o’t ? ’ again exclaimed Madge Wildfire. ‘ Douce 
Davie Deans, the auld doited Whig body’s daughter in a gipsy’s 
barn, and the night setting in ; this is a sight for sair een ! 
Eh, sirs, the falling off o’ the godly ! And the t’other sister’s 
in the tolbooth at Edinburgh ! I am very sorry for her, for my 
share ; it’s my mother wusses ill to her, and no me, though 
maybe I hae as muckle cause.’ 

‘ Hark ye, Madge,’ said the taller ruffian, ‘ you have not such 
a touch of the devil’s blood as the hag your mother, who may 
be his dam for what I know ; take this young woman to your 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


301 


kennel, and do not let the devil enter, though he should ask in 
God’s name.’ 

‘Ou ay, that I will, Frank,’ said Madge, taking hold of 
Jeanie by the arm, and pulling her along ; ‘ for it’s no for decent 
Christian young leddies, like her and me, to be keeping the like 
o’ you and Tyburn Tam company at this time o’ night. Sae gude 
e’en t’ye, sirs, and mony o’ them ; and may ye a’ sleep till the 
hangman wauken ye, and then it will be weel for the country.’ 

She then, as her wild fancy seemed suddenly to prompt her, 
walked demurely towards her mother, who, seated by the char- 
coal fire, with the reflection of the red light on her withered 
and distorted features, marked by every evil passion, seemed 
the very picture of Hecate at her infernal rites ; and suddenly 
dropping on her knees, said, with the manner of a six years old 
child, ‘ Mammie, hear me say my prayers before I go to bed, 
and say God bless my bonny face, as ye used to do lang syne.’ 

‘ The deil flay the hide o’ it to sole his brogues wi’ ! ’ said the 
old lady, aiming a bufiet at the supplicant in answer to her 
duteous request. 

The blow missed Madge, who, being probably acquainted by 
experience with the mode" in which her mother was wont to 
confer her maternal benedictions, slipt out of arm’s length with 
great dexterity and quickness. The hag then started up, and, 
seizing a pair of old fire-tongs, would have amended her motion 
by beating out the brains either of her daughter or Jeanie, she 
did not seem greatly to care which, when her hand was once 
more arrested by the man whom they called Frank Levitt, who, 
seizing her by the shoulder, flung her from him with great 
violence, exclaiming, ‘What, Mother Damnable, again, and in 
my sovereign presence ? Hark ye, Madge of Bedlam, get to your 
hole with your playfellow, or we shall have the devil to pay here, 
and nothing to pay him with.’ 

Madge took Levitt’s advice, retreating as fast as she could, 
and dragging Jeanie along with her, into a sort of recess, parti- 
tioned off from the rest of the barn, and filled with straw, from 
which it appeared that it was intended for the purpose of 
slumber. The moonlight shone through an open hole upon a 
pillion, a pack-saddle, and one or two wallets, the travelling 
furniture of Madge and her amiable mother. ‘Now, saw ye 
e’er in your life,’ said Madge, ‘sae dainty a chamber of deas? 
See as the moon shines down sae caller on the fresh strae ! 
There’s no a pleasanter cell in Bedlam, for as braw a place as it 
is on the outside. Were ye ever in Bedlam ? ’ 


302 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘No,’ answered Jeanie faintly, appalled by the question and 
the way in which it was put, yet willing to soothe her insane 
companion; being in circumstances so unhappily precarious that 
even the society of this gibbering madwoman seemed a species 
of protection. 

‘ Never in Bedlam ! ’ said Madge, as if with some surprise. 
‘ But ye’ll hae been in the cells at Edinburgh ? ’ 

‘ Never,’ repeated Jeanie. 

‘ Weel, I think thae daft carles the magistrates send naebody 
to Bedlam but me ; they maun hae an unco respect for me, for 
whenever I am brought to them they aye hae me back to 
Bedlam. But troth, Jeanie (she said this in a very confidential 
tone), to tell ye my private mind about it, I think ye are at 
nae great loss ; for the keeper’s a cross patch, and he maun hae 
it a’ his ain gate, to be sure, or he makes the place waur than 
hell. I often tell him he’s the daftest in a’ the house. But 
what are they making sic a skirling for ? Deil ane o’ them’s get 
in here ; it wadna be mensefu’ ! I will sit wi’ my back again 
the door ; it winna be that easy stirring me.’ 

‘ Madge ! ’ — ‘ Madge ! ’ — ‘ Madge Wildfire ! ’ — ‘ Madge devil ! 
what have ye done with the horse ? ’ was repeatedly asked by 
the men without. 

‘ He’s e’en at his supper, puir thing,’ answered Madge ; ‘ deil 
an ye were at yours too, an it were scauding brimstane, and 
then we wad hae less o’ your din.’ 

‘ His supper ! ’ answered the more sulky ruffian. ‘ What d’ye 
mean by that ? Tell me Avhere he is, or, I will knock your 
Bedlam brains out ! ’ 

‘ He’s in Gaffer Gabblewood’s wheat-close, an ye maun ken.’ 

‘His wheat-close, you crazed jilt ! ’ answered the other, with 
an accent of great indignation. 

‘ 0, dear Tyburn Tam, man, what ill will the blades of the 
young wheat do to the puir naig 1 ’ 

‘ That is not the question,’ said the other robber ; ‘ but what 
the country will say to us to-morrow when they see him in such 
quarters. Go, Tom, and bring him in; and avoid the soft 
ground, my lad ; leave no hoof -track behind you.’ 

‘ I think you give me always the fag of it, whatever is to be 
done,’ grumbled his companion. 

‘ “ Leap, Laurence, you’re long enough,” ’ said the other ; and 
the fellow left the barn accordingly, without farther remon- 
strance. 

In the meanwhile, Madge had airanged herself for repose on 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


the straw ; but still in a half-sitting posture, with her back 
resting against the door of the hovel, which, as it opened in- 
wards, w^as in this manner kept shut by the weight of her 
person. 

‘ There’s mair shifts bye stealing, Jeanie,’ said Madge Wildfire; 
‘ though whiles I can hardly get our mother to think sae. Wha 
wad hae thought but mysell of making a bolt of my ain back- 
bane ? But it’s no sae strong as thae that I hae seen in the 
tolbooth at Edinburgh. The hammermen of Edinburgh are to 
my mind afore the world for making stanchions, ring-bolts, 
fetter -bolts, bars, and locks. And they arena that bad at 
girdles for carcakes neither, though the Cu’ross hammermen 
have the gree for that. My mother had ance a bonny Cu’ross 
girdle, and I thought to have baked carcakes on it for my puir 
wean that’s dead and gane nae fair way ; but we maun a’ dee, 
ye ken, Jeanie. You Cameronian bodies ken that brawly ; and 
ye’re for making a hell upon earth that ye may be less imwillin’ 
to part wi’ it. But as touching Bedlam, that ye were speaking 
about, I’se ne’er recommend it muckle the tae gate or the tother, 
be it right, be it wrang. But ye ken what the sang says 1 ’ 
And, pursuing the unconnected and floating wanderings of her 
mind, she sung aloud — 

‘ In the bonny cells of Bedlam, 

Ere I was ane-and- twenty, 

I had hempen bracelets strong. 

And merry whips, ding-dong. 

And prayer and fasting plenty. 

Weel, Jeanie, I am something herse the night, and I canna sing 
muckle mair ; and troth, I think I am gaun to sleep.’ 

She drooped her head on her breast, a posture from which 
Jeanie, who would have given the world for an opportunity of 
quiet to consider the means and the probability of her escape, 
was very careful not to disturb her. After nodding, however, for 
a minute or two, with her eyes half closed, the unquiet and rest- 
less spirit of her malady again assailed Madge. She raised her 
head and spoke, but with a lowered tone, which was again 
gradually overcome by drowsiness, to which the fatigue of a day 's 
journey on horseback had probably given unwonted occasion — 
‘ I dinna ken what makes me sae sleepy ; I amaist never sleep 
till my bonny Lady Moon gangs till her bed, mair by token 
when she’s at the full, ye ken, rowing aboon us yonder in her 

f^rand silver coach. I have danced to her my lane sometimes 
£? 


304 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


for very joy, and whiles dead folk came and danced wi’ me, 
the like o’ Jock Porteous, or ony body I had kenn’d when I was 
living ; for ye maun ken I was ance dead myselL’ Here the 
poor maniac sung in a low and wild tone — 

‘ My banes are buried in yon kirkyard 
Sae far ayont the sea, 

And it is but my blithesome ghaist 
That’s speaking now to thee. 

But, after a’, Jeanie, my woman, naebody kens weel wha’s 
living and wha’s dead,^ — or wha’s gane to Fairyland, there’s 
another question. Whiles I think my puir bairn’s dead; ye 
ken very weel it’s buried, but that signifies naething. I have 
had it on my knee a hundred times, and a hundred till that, 
since it was buried ; and how could that be were it dead, ye 
ken ? It’s merely impossible.’ And here, some conviction half- 
overcoming the reveries of her imagination, she burst into a fit 
of crying and ejaculation, ‘ Wae’s me ! wae’s me ! wae’s me ! ’ 
till at length she moaned and sobbed herself into a deep sleep, 
which was soon intimated by her breathing hard, leaving Jeanie 
to her own melancholy reflections and observations. 


CHAPTER XXX 


Bind her quickly ; or, by this steel, 

I’ll tell, although I tniss for company. 

Fletcher. 

The imperfect light which shone into the window enabled Jeanie 
to see that there was scarcely any chance of making her escape 
in that direction ; for the aperture was high in the wall, and so 
narrow that, could she have climbed up to it, she might well 
doubt whether it would have permitted her to pass her body 
through it. An unsuccessful attempt to escape would be sure 
to draw down worse treatment than she now received, and 
she therefore resolved to watch her opportunity carefully ere 
making such a perilous effort. For this purpose she applied 
herself to the minous clay partition which divided the hovel 
in which she now was from the rest of the waste barn. It was 
decayed, and full of cmcks and chinks, one of which she enlarged 
with her fingers, cautiously and without noise, until she could 
obtain a plain view of the old hag and the taller ruffian, whom 
they called Levitt, seated together beside the decayed fire of 
charcoal, and apparently engaged in close conference. She was 
at first terrified by the sight, for the features of the old woman 
had a hideous cast of hardened and inveterate malice and ill- 
humour, and those of the man, though naturally less unfavour- 
able, were such as corresponded well with licentious habits and 
a lawless profession. 

‘But I remembered,’ said Jeanie, ‘my worthy father’s tales 
of a winter evening, how he was confined with the blessed martyr, 
Mr. James Renwick, who lifted up the fallen standard of the true 
reformed Kirk of Scotland, after the worthy and renowned Daniel 
[Richard] Cameron, our last blessed bannerman, had fallen among 
the swords of the wicked at Aird’s Moss, and how the very hearts 
of the wicked malefactors and murderers whom they were con- 
fined withal were melted like wax at the sound of their doctrine, 
and I bethought mysell, that the same help that was wi’ them 

20 


VII 


306 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


in their strait, Avad be wi’ me in mine, an I could but watch the 
Lord’s time and opportunity for delivering my feet from their 
snare; and I minded the Scripture of the blessed Psalmist, 
whilk he insisteth on, as weel in the forty-second as in the forty- 
third psalm, “ Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul, and Avhy art ; 
thou disquieted within me ? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise | 
him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” ’ 

Strengthened in a mind naturally calm, sedate, and firm, I 
by the influence of religious confidence, this poor captive was i 
enabled to attend to, and comprehend, a great part of an interest- j 
ing conversation which passed betwixt those into whose hands ^ 
she had fallen, notwithstanding that their meaning was partly | 
disguised by the occasional use of cant terms, of which Jeanie j 
knew not the import, by the low tone in Avhich they spoke, and | 
by their mode of supplying their broken phrases by shrugs and j 
signs, as is usual amongst those of their disorderly profession. 

The man opened the conversation by saying, ‘Now, dame, 
you see I am true to my friend. I have not forgot that you 
planked a chury which helped me through the bars of the 
Castle of York, and I came to do your Avork Avithout asking 
questions, for one good turn deserves another. But noAv that 
Madge, Avho is as loud as Tom of Lincoln, is someAvhat still, 
and this same Tyburn Neddie is shaking his heels after the old 
nag, Avhy, you must tell me A\Bat all this is about, and Avhat’s 
to be done ; for d — n me if I touch the girl, or let her be 
touched, and she Avith Jim Rat’s pass too.’ 

‘ Thou art an honest lad, Frank,’ ansAvered the old Avoman, 

‘ but e’en too kind for thy trade ; thy tender heart Avill get thee 
into trouble. I will see ye gang up Holborn Hill backAv^ard, ! 
and a’ on the word of some silly loon that could never hae i 
rapped to ye had ye drawn your knife across his weasand.’ 

‘You may be baulked there, old one,’ ansAvered the robber; 

‘ I have known many a pretty lad cut short in his first summer i 
upon the road, because he was something hasty Avith his flats i 
and sharps. Besides, a man Avould fain live out his tAvo years 
with a good conscience. So, tell me Avhat all this is about, and 
Avhat’s to be done for you that one can do decently ? ’ 

‘Why, you must knoAv, Frank — but first taste a snap of 
right Hollands.’ She drew a flask from her pocket, and filled 
the fellow a large bumper, which he pronounced to be the right 
thing. ‘ You must know, then, Frank — wunna ye mend your 
hand ? ’ again offering the flask. 

‘ No, no ; when a woman wants mischief from you, she always 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


307 


begins by filling you drunk. D — n all Dutch courage. What 
I do I will do soberly. I’ll last the longer for that too.’ 

‘Well, then, you must know,’ resumed the old woman, with- 
out any farther attempts at propitiation, ‘ that this girl is going 
to London.’ 

Here Jeanie could only distinguish the word ‘sister.’ 

The robber answered in a louder tone, ‘ Fair enough that ; 
and what the devil is your business with it 1 ’ 

j ‘ Business enough, I think. If the b queers the noose, 

that silly cull will marry her.’ 

‘ And who cares if he does ? ’ said the man. 

‘ Who cares, ye donnard Neddie ? I care ; and I will strangle 
her with my own hands rather than she should come to Madge’s 
preferment.’ 

• ‘ Madge’s preferment ! Does your old blind eyes see no 

farther than that ? If he is as you say, d’ye think he’ll ever 
marry a moon -calf like Madge ? Ecod, that’s a good one. 
Marry Madge Wildfire ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ’ 

‘ Hark ye, ye crack-rope padder, bom beggar, and bred thief ! ’ 
replied the hag ; ‘ suppose he never marries the wench, is that a 
reason he should marry another, and that other to hold my 
daughter’s place, and she crazed, and I a beggar, and all along 
, of him ? But I know that of him will hang him — I know that 
of him wdll hang him, if he had a thousand lives — I know that 
of him will hang — hang — hang him ! ’ 

She grinned as she repeated and dwelt upon the fatal mono- 
syllable with the emphasis of a vindictive fiend. 

‘Then why don’t you hang — hang — hang him?’ said Frank, 
repeating her words contemptuously. ‘ There would be more 
sense in that, than in wreaking yourself here upon two wenches 
that have done you and your daughter no ill.’ 

‘ No ill ! ’ answered the old woman ; ‘ and he to marry this 
jail-bird, if ever she gets her foot loose ! ’ 

‘ But as there is no chance of his marrying a bird of your 
brood, I cannot, for my soul, see what you have to do with all 
this,’ again replied the robber, shrugging his shoulders. ‘ Where 
there is aught to be got. I’ll go as far as my neighbours, but I 
hate mischief for mischief’s sake.’ 

‘ And would you go nae length for revenge ? ’ said the hag — 
‘ for revenge, the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was 
cooked in hell ! ’ 

‘ The devil may keep it for his own eating, then,’ said the 
robber ; ‘ for hang me if I like the sauce he dresses it with.’ 


308 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ Revenge ! ’ continued the old woman ; ‘ why, it is the best 
reward the devil gives us for our time here and hereafter. I 
have wrought hard for it, I have suffered for it, and I have 
sinned for it, and I will have it — or there is neither justice in 
Heaven nor in Hell ! ’ 

Levitt had by this time lighted a pipe, and was listening 
with great composure to the frantic and vindictive ravings of 
the old hag. He was too much hardened by his course of life 
to be shocked with them; too indifferent, and probably too 
stupid, to catch any part of their animation or energy. ‘ But, 
mother,’ he said, after a pause, ‘ still I say, that if revenge is 
your wish, you should take it on the young fellow himself.’ 

‘ I wish I could,’ she said, drawing in her breath, with the 
eagerness of a thirsty person while mimicking the action of 
drinking — ‘ I wish I could ! but no, I cannot — I cannot.’ « 

‘And why not? You would think little of peaching and 
hanging him for this Scotch affair. Rat me, one might have 
milled the Bank of England, and less noise about it.’ 

‘ I have nursed him at this withered breast,’ answered the 
old woman, folding her hands on her bosom, as if pressing an 
infant to it, ‘ and though he has proved an adder to me, though 
he has been the destruction of me and mine, though he has 
made me company for the devil, if there be a devil, and food 
for hell, if there be such a place, yet I cannot take his life. No, 

I cannot,’ she continued, with an appearance of rage against 
herself; ‘I have thought of it, I have tried it, but, Emncis 
Levitt, I canna gang through wi’t ! Na, na, he was the first 
bairn I ever nurst ; ill I had been — but man can never 
ken what woman feels for the bairn she has held first to her 
bosom ! ’ 

‘To be sure,’ said Levitt, ‘we have no experience. But, 
mother, they say you ha’n’t been so kind to other hairns, as 
you call them, that have come in your way. Nay, d — n me, 
never lay your hand on the whittle, for I am captain and leader 
here, and I will have no rebellion.’ 

The hag, whose first motion had been, upon hearing the 
question, to grasp the haft of a large knife, now unclosed her 
hand, stole it away from the weapon, and suffered it to fall by i 
her side, while she proceeded with a sort of smile — ‘ Bairns ! ye j 
are joking, lad, wha wad touch bairns ? Madge, puir thing, had 1 

a misfortune wi’ ane; and the tother ’ Here her voice sunk | 

so much that Jeanie, though anxiously upon the watch, could 
not catch a word she said, until she raised her tone at the con- j 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


309 


elusion of the sentence — ‘So Madge, in her daffin’, threw it into 
the Nor’ Loch, I trow.’ 

Madge, whose slumbers, like those of most who labour under 
mental malady, had been short, and were easily broken, now 
made herself heard from her place of repose. 

‘ Indeed, mother, that’s a great lee, for I did nae sic thing.’ 

‘ Hush, thou hellicat devil,’ said her mother. ‘ By Heaven ! 
the other wench will be waking too ! ’ 

‘That may be dangerous,’ said Frank; and he rose and 
followed Meg Murdockson across the floor. 

‘Rise,’ said the hag to her daughter, ‘or I sail drive the 
knife between the planks into the Bedlam back of thee ! ’ 

Apparently she at the same time seconded her threat, by 
pricking her with the point of a knife, for Madge, with a faint 
* scream, changed her place, and the door opened. 

The old woman held a candle in one hand and a knife in 
the other. Levitt appeared behind her ; whether with a view 
of preventing or assisting her in any violence she might medi- 
tate could not be well guessed. Jeanie’s presence of mind 
I stood her friend in this dreadful crisis. She had resolution 
, enough to maintain the attitude and manner of one who sleeps 
I profoundly, and to regulate even her breathing, notwithstand- 
ing the agitation of instant terror, so as to correspond with her 
attitude. 

The old woman passed the light across her eyes; and, although 
i Jeanie’s fears were so powerfully awakened by this movement, 

! that she often declared afterwards that she thought she saw the 
j figures of her destined murderers through her closed eyelids, she 
had still the resolution to maintain the feint on which her safety 
I perhaps depended. 

Levitt looked at her with fixed attention ; he then turned 
the old woman out of the place, and followed her himself. 
Having regained the outer apartment, and seated themselves, 
Jeanie heard the highwayman say, to her no small relief, ‘ She’s 
as fast as if she were in Bedfordshire. Now, old Meg, d — n me 
if I can understand a glim of this story of yours, or what good 
it will do you to hang the one wench and torment the other ; 
but, rat me, I will be true to my friend, and serve ye the way 
ye like it. I see it will be a bad job ; but I do think I could 
get her down to Surfleet on the Wash, and so on board Tom 
Moonshine’s neat lugger, and keep her out of the way three or 
four weeks, if that will please ye. But d — n me if any one 
shall harm her, unless they have a mind to choke on a brace 


310 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


of blue plums. It’s a cruel bad job, and I wish you and it, 
Meg, were both at the devil.’ 

‘Never mind, hinny Levitt,’ said the old woman ; ‘you are 
a ruffler, and will have a’ your ain gate. She shanna gang to 
Heaven an hour sooner for me ; I carena whether she live or die : 
it’s her sister — ay, her sister ! ’ 

‘ Well, we’ll say no more about it, I hear Tom coming in. 
We’ll couch a hogshead, and so better had you.’ 

They retired to repose, accordingly, and all was silent in this 
asylum of iniquity. 

Jeanie lay for a long time awake. At break of day she 
heard the two mffians leave the bam, after whispering with the 
old woman for some time. The sense that she was now guarded 
only by persons of her own sbx gave her some confidence, and 
irresistible lassitude at length threw her into slumber. 

AVhen the captive awakened, the sun was high in heaven, 
and the morning considerably advanced. Madge AVildfire was 
still in the hovel which had served them for the night, and 
immediately bid her good morning, with her usual air of insane 
glee. ‘ And d’ye ken, lass,’ said Madge, ‘ there’s queer things 
chanced since ye hae been in the land of Nod. The con- 
stables hae been here, woman, and they met wi’ my minnie 
at the door, and they whirl’d her awa’ to the Justice’s about 
the man’s wheat. Dear ! thae English churls think as muckle 
about a blade of wheat or grass as a Scots laird does about his 
maukins and his muir-poots. Now, lass, if ye like, we’ll play 
them a fine jink : we will awa’ out and take a walk ; they will 
make unco wark when they miss us, but we can easily be back 
by dinner time, or before dark night at ony rate, and it will be 
some frolic and fresh air. But maybe ye wad like to take some 
breakfast, and then lie down again ? I ken by mysell, there’s 
whiles I can sit wi’ my head on my hand the haill day, and 
havena a word to cast at a dog, and -other whiles that I 
canna sit still a moment. That’s when the folk think me 
warst ; but I am aye canny eneugh — ye needna be feared to 
walk wi’ me.’ 

Had Madge Wildfire been the most raging lunatic, instead 
of possessing a doubtful, uncertain, and twilight sort of ration- 
ality, varying, probably, from the influence of the most trivial 
causes, Jeanie would hardly have objected to leave a place of 
captivity where she had so much to apprehend. She eagerly 
assured Madge that she had no occasion for farther sleep, no 
desire whatever for eating ; and hoping internally that she was 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 311 

not guilty of sin in doing so, she flattered her keeper’s crazy 
humour for walking in the woods. 

‘ It’s no a’thegither for that neither,’ said poor Madge ; ‘ but 
I am judging ye will wun the better out o’ thae folks’ hands ; 
no that they are a’thegither bad folk neither, but they have 
queer ways wi’ them, and I whiles dinna think it has been ever 
very weel wi’ my mother and me since we kept sic-like company.’ 

With the haste, the joy, the fear, and the hope of a liberated 
captive, Jeanie snatched up her little bundle, followed Madge 
into the free air, and eagerly looked round her for a human 
habitation ; but none was to be seen. The ground was partly 
cultivated, and partly left in its natural state, according as the 
fancy of the slovenly agriculturists had decided. In its natural 
state it was waste, in some places covered with dwarf trees and 
bushes, in others swamp, and elsewhere firm and dry downs or 
pasture-grounds. * 

Jeanie’s active mind next led her to conjecture which way 
the highroad lay, whence she had been forced. If she regained 
that public road, she imagined she must soon meet some person, 
or arrive at some house, where she might tell her story, and 
request protection. But after a glance around her, she saw 
wdth regret that she had no means whatever of directing her 
course with any degree of certainty, and that she was still in 
dependence upon her crazy companion. ‘Shall we not walk 
upon the highroad ? ’ said she to Madge, in such a tone as a 
nurse uses to coax a child. ‘ It’s brawer walking on the road 
than amang thae wild bushes and whins.’ 

Madge, who was walking very fast, stopped at this question, 
and looked at Jeanie with a sudden and scrutinising glance, that 

i seemed to indicate complete acquaintance with her purpose. 
‘ Aha, lass ! ’ she exclaimed, ‘ are ye gaun to guide us that gate ? 
Ye’ll be for making your heels save your head, I am judging.’ 

Jeanie hesitated for a moment, on hearing her companion 
thus express herself, whether she had not better take the hint, 
and try to outstrip and get rid of her. But she knew not in 
I which direction to fly; she was by no means sure that she 
would prove the swiftest, and perfectly conscious that, in the 
event of her being pursued and overtaken, she would be inferior 
to the madwoman in strength. She therefore gave up thoughts 
I for the present of attempting to escape in that manner, and, 
saying a few words to allay Madge’s suspicions, she followed in 
I anxious apprehension the wayward path by which her guide 
( thought proper to lead her. Madge, infirm of purpose, and 


312 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


easily reconciled to the present scene, whatever it was, began 
soon to talk with her usual diffuseness of ideas. 

‘ It’s a dainty thing to be in the woods on a fine morning 
like this. I like it far better than the town, for there isna a 
wheen duddy bairns to be crying after ane, as if ane were a 
warld’s wonder, just because ane maybe is a thought bonnier 
and better put-on than their neighbours; though, Jeanie, ye 
suld never be proud o’ braw claiths, or beauty neither ; wae’s 
me ! they’re but a snare. I anes thought better o’ them, and 
what came o’t ? ’ 

‘Are ye sure ye ken the way ye are taking us?’ said Jeanie, 
w'ho began to imagine that she was getting deeper into the 
woods, and more remote from the highroad. 

‘ Do I ken the road ? Wasna I mony a day living here, and 
what for shouldna I ken the road ? I might hae forgotten, too, 
for it was afore my accident ; but there are some things ane 
can never forget, let them try it as muckle as they like.’ 

By this time they had gained the deepest part of a patch of 
woodland. The trees were a little separated from each other, 
and at the foot of one of them, a beautiful poplar, was a varie- 
gated hillock of wild flowers and moss, such as the poet of 
Grasmere has described in his verses on ‘ The Thorn.’ So soon 
as she arrived at this spot, Madge Wildfire, joining her hands 
above her head, with a loud scream that resembled laughter, 
flung herself all at once upon the spot, and remained lying 
there motionless. 

Jeanie’s first idea was to take the opportunity of flight; but 
her desire to escape yielded for a moment to apprehension for 
the poor insane being, who, she thought, might perish for want 
of relief. With an effort, which, in her circumstances, might 
be termed heroic, she stooped down, spoke in a soothing tone, 
and endeavoured to raise up the forlorn creature. She effected 
this with difficulty, and, as she placed her against the tree in a 
sitting posture, she observed with surprise that her complexion, 
usually florid, was now deadly pale, and that her face was 
bathed in tears. Notwithstanding her own extreme danger, 
J eanie was affected by the situation of her companion ; and the 
rather that, through the whole train of her wavering and in- 
consistent state of mind and line of conduct, she discerned a 
general colour of kindness towards herself, for which she felt 
grateful. 

‘ Let me alane ! — let me alane ! ’ said the poor young woman, 
as her paroxysm of sorrow began to abate. ‘ Let me alane ; it 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


313 


does me good to weep. I canna shed tears but maybe anes or 
twice a-year, and I aye come to wet this tiirf with them, that 
the flowers may grow fair, and the grass may be green.' 

‘ But what is the matter with you ? ' said Jeanie. ‘ Why do 
you weep so bitterly ? ’ 

‘ There's matter enow,’ replied the lunatic ; ‘ mair than ae 
puir mind can bear, I trow. Stay a bit, and I'll tell you a' 
about it ; for I like ye, Jeanie Deans ; a’body spoke weel about 
ye when we lived in the Pleasaunts. And I mind aye the 
drink o’ milk ye gae me yon day, when I had been on Arthur’s 
Seat for four-and-twenty hours, looking for the ship that some- 
body was sailing in.’ 

These words recalled to Jeanie’s recollection that, in fact, 
she had been one morning much frightened by meeting a crazy 
young woman near her father’s house at an early hour, and 
that, as she appeared to be harmless, her apprehension had been 
changed into pity, and she had relieved the unhappy wanderer 
with some food, which she devoured with the haste of a famished 
person. The incident, trifling in itself, was at present of great 
importance, if it should be found to have made a favourable 
and permanent impression on the mind of the object of her 
charity. 

‘Yes,’ said Madge, ‘I’ll tell ye all about it, for ye are a 
decent man’s daughter — Douce Davie Deans, ye ken; and 
maybe ye’ll can teach me to find out the narrow way and the 
strait path; for I have been burning bricks in Egypt, and 
walking through the weary wilderness of Sinai, for lang and 
mony a day. But whenever I think about mine errors, I am 
like to cover my lips for shame.’ Here she looked up and 
smiled. ‘It’s a strange thing now — I hae spoke mair gude 
words to you in ten minutes, than I wad speak to my mother 
in as mony years. It’s no that I dinna think on them, and 
whiles they are just at my tongue’s end ; but then comes the 
devil and brushes my lips with his black wing, and lays his 
broad black loof on my mouth — for a black loof it is, Jeanie — 
and sweeps away a’ my gude thoughts, and dits up my gude 
words, and pits a wheen fule sangs and idle vanities in their 
place.’ 

‘Try, Madge,’ said Jeanie — ‘try to settle your mind and 
make your breast clean, and you’ll find your heart easier. 
Just resist the devil, and he will flee from you ; and mind that, 
as my worthy father tells me, there is nae devil sae deceitfu’ as 
our ain wandering thoughts.’ 


314 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘And that’s true too, lass,’ said Madge, starting up; ‘and 
I’ll gang a gate where the devil daurna follow me ; and it’s a 
gate that you will like dearly to gang ; but I’ll keep a fast haud 
o’ your arm, for fear Apollyon should stride across the path, as 
he did in the Pilgrim! 8 Progress’ ^ 

Accordingly she got up, and, taking Jeanie by the arm, j 
began to walk forward at a great pace ; and soon, to her com- ij 
panion’s no small jo}^, came into a marked path, with the 
meanders of which she seemed perfectly acquainted. Jeanie 
endeavoured to bring her back to the confessional, but the 
fancy was gone by. In fact, the mind of this deranged being ■ 
resembled nothing so much as a quantity of dry leaves, which i 
may for a few minutes remain still, but are instantly discom- I 
posed and put in motion by the first casual breath of air. She 
had now got John Bunyan’s parable into her head, to the exclu- j 
sion of everything else, and on she went with great volubility. 

‘ Did ye never read the Pilgrim’s Progress 1 And you shall 
be the woman Christiana, and I will be the maiden Mercy ; for i 
ye ken Mercy Avas of the fairer countenance, and the more ; 
alluring than her companion ; and if I had my little messan 
dog here, it would be Great-Heart, their guide, ye ken, for he 
Avas e’en as bauld that he Avad bark at ony thing tAventy times 
his size ; and that Avas e’en the death of him, for he bit Corporal 
MacAlpine’s heels ae morning Avhen they were hauling me to 
the guard-house, and Corporal MacAlpine killed the bit faithfu’ 
thing Avi’ his Lochaber axe — deil pike the Highland banes o’ him !’ 

‘ 0 fie, Madge,’ said Jeanie, ‘ ye should not speak such words.’ 

‘It’s very true,’ said Madge, shaking her head ; ‘but then I 
maunna think on my puir bit doggie. Snap, Avhen I saAV it lying 
dying in the gutter. But it’s just as weel, for it suffered baith 
cauld and hunger Avhen it Avas living, and in the grave there 
is rest for a’ things — rest for the doggie, and my puir bairn, 
and me.’ 

‘Your bairn?’ said Jeanie, conceiving that by speaking on 
such a topic, supposing it to be a real one, she could not fail 
to bring her companion to a more composed temper. 

She was mistaken, however, for Madge coloured, and replied 
Avith some anger, ‘J/y bairn? ay, to be sure, my bairn. What 
for shouldna I hae a bairn, and lose a bairn too, as weel as your 
bonny tittie, the Lily of St. Leonard’s ? ’ 

The answer struck Jeanie Avith some alarm, and she Avas 
anxious to soothe the irritation she had unwittingly given 
occasion to. ‘ I am very sorry for your misfortune ’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


315 


‘ Sorry ! what wad ye be Sony for ? ’ answered Madge. ‘ The 
bairn was a blessing — that is, Jeanie, it wad hae been a bless- 
ing if it hadna been for my mother ; but my mother’s a queer 
woman. Ye see, there was an auld carle wi’ a bit land, and a 
gude clat o’ siller besides, just the very picture of old Mr. 
Feeblemind or Mr. Ready-to-halt, that Great-Heart delivered 
from Slay good the giant, when he was rifling him and about to 
pick his bones, for Slaygood was of the nature of the flesh- 
eaters ; and Great-Heart killed Giant Despair too ; but I am 
doubting Giant Despair’s come alive again, for a’ the story- 
book ; I find him busy at my heart whiles.’ 

Weel, and so the auld carle ’ said Jeanie, for she was 

painfully interested in getting to the truth of Madge’s history, 
which she could not but suspect Avas in some extraordinary 
way linked and entAvined Avith the fate of her sister. She Avas 
also desirous, if possible, to engage her companion in some 
narrative Avhich might be carried on in a loAver tone of voice, 
for she Avas in great apprehension lest the elevated notes of 
Madge’s conversation should direct her mother or the robbers 
in search of them. 

‘And so the auld carle,’ said Madge, repeating her words — 
‘ I Avish you had seen him stoiting about, aff ae leg on to the 
other, Avi’ a kind o’ dot-and-go-one sort o’ motion, as if ilk ane 
o’ his twa legs had belonged to sindry folk. But Gentle 
George could take him afl* braAAdy. Eh, as I used to laugh to 
see George gang hip-hop like him ! I dinna ken, I think I 
laughed heartier then than what I do now, though maybe no 
just sae muckle.’ 

‘And Avho Avas Gentle George?’ said Jeanie, endeavouring to 
j bring her back to her story. 

‘ 0, he AA^as Geordie Robertson, ye ken, Avhen he Avas in Edin- 
burgh ; but that’s no his right name neither. His name is 

But Avdiat is your business Avi’ his name ? ’ said she, as if upon 
sudden recollection. ‘What have ye to do asking for folks’ 
names? Have ye a mind I should scour my knife between 
I your ribs, as my mother says ? ’ 

As this Avas spoken with a menacing tone and gesture, 
Jeanie hastened to protest her total innocence of purpose in the 
accidental question Avhich she had asked, and Madge Wildfire 
Avent on somewhat pacified. 

‘Never ask folks’ names, Jeanie: it’s no civil. I hae seen 
half a dozen o’ folk in my mother’s at anes, and ne’er ane o’ 
them ca’d the ither by his name ; and Daddie Ratton says it 


316 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


is the most uncivil thing may be, because the bailie bodies are 
aye asking fashions questions, when ye saw sic a man or sic a 
man; and if ye dinna ken their names, ye ken there can be 
nae mair speer’d about it.’ i 

‘ In what strange school,’ thought Jean ie to herself, ‘ has this | 
poor creature been bred up, where such remote precautions are 
taken against the pursuits of justice ? What would my father 
or Reuben Butler think, if I were to tell them there are sic folk 
in the world ? And to abuse the simplicity of this demented 
creature ! 0, that I were but safe at hame amang mine ain 

leal and true people ! and I’ll bless God, while I have breath, 
that placed me amongst those who live in His fear, and under 
the shadow of His wing.’ 

She was interrupted by the insane laugh of Madge Wildfire, 
as she saw a magpie hop across the path. 

‘ See there ! that was the gate my old jo used to cross the 
country, but no just sae lightly : he hadna wings to help his 
auld legs, I trow ; but I behoved to have married him for a’ 
that, Jeanie, or my mother wad hae been the dead o’ me. 
But then came in the story of my poor bairn, and my mother 
thought he wad be deaved wi’ its skirling, and she pat it away 
in below the bit bourock of turf yonder, just to be out o’ the 
gate ; and I think she buried my best wits with it, for I have 
never been just my sell since. And only think, Jeanie, after 
my mother had been at a’ this pains, the auld doited body 
Johnny Drottle turned up his nose, and wadna hae aught to 
say to me ! But it’s little I care for him, for I have led a 
merry life ever since, and ne’er a braw gentleman looks at me 
but ye wad think he was gaun to drop off his horse for mere 
love of me. I have kenn’d some o’ them put their hand in their 
pocket and gie me as muckle as sixpence at a time, just for my 
weel-faur’d face.’ 

This speech gave Jeanie a dark insight into Madge’s history. 
She had been courted by a wealthy suitor, Avhose addresses her 
mother had favoured, notwithstanding the objection of old age 
and deformity. She had been seduced by some profligate, and, 
to conceal her shame and promote the advantageous match she 
had planned, her mother had not hesitated to destroy the 
offspring of their intrigue. That the consequence should be ; 
the total derangement of a mind which was constitutionally 
unsettled by giddiness and vanity was extremely natural ; and i 
such was, in fact, the history of Madge Wildfire’s insanity. ; 


CHAPTER XXXI 


So free from danger, free from fear, 

They cross’d the court, right glad they were. 

Christabel. 

Pursuing the path which Madge had chosen, Jeanie Deans 
observed, to her no small delight, that marks of more cultiva- 
tion appeared, and the thatched roofs of houses, with their blue 
smoke arising in little columns, were seen embosomed in a tuft 
of trees at some distance. The track led in that direction, and 
Jeanie therefore resolved, while Madge continued to pursue it, 
that she would ask her no questions ; having had the penetra- 
tion to observe that by doing so she rah the risk of irritating 
i her guide, or awakening suspicions, to the impressions of which 
' persons in Madge’s unsettled state of mind are particularly liable, 
i Madge therefore, uninterrupted, went on with the wild 
; disjointed chat w'hich her rambling imagination suggested ; a 
! mood in which she was much more communicative respecting 
! her own history and that of others than when there was any 
attempt made, by direct queries or cross-examinations, to 
extract information on these subjects. 

‘ It’s a queer thing,’ she said, ‘ but whiles I can speak about 
the bit bairn and the rest of it, just as if it had been another 
body’s, and no my ain ; and whiles I am like to break my heart 
about it. Had you ever a bairn, Jeanie ?’ 

Jeanie replied in the negative. 

‘ Ay, but your sister had, though ; and I ken what came o’t 
too.’ 

‘ In the name of Heavenly mercy,’ said Jeanie, forgetting the 
line of conduct which she had hitherto adopted, ‘ tell me but 
what became of that unfortunate babe, and ’ 

Madge stopped, looked at her gravely and fixedly, and then 
broke into a great fit of laughing. ‘ Aha, lass, catch me if you 
can. I think it’s easy to gar you trow ony thing. How suld I 
ken ony thing o’ your sister’s wean ? Lasses suld hae naething 


318 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


to do wi’ weans till they are married ; and then a’ the gossips 
and cummers come in and feast as if it were the blythest day 
in the warld. They say maidens’ bairns are weel guided. I 
wot that wasna true of your tittie’s and mine ; but these are 
sad tales to tell, I maun just sing a bit to keep up my heart. 
It’s a sang that Gentle George made on me lang syne, when I 
went with him to Lockington wake, to see him act upon a stage, 
in fine clothes, with the player folk. He might have dune waur 
than married me that night as he promised : “ Better w'ed over 
the mixen as over the moor,” as they say in Yorkshire — he may 
gang farther and fare waur ; but that’s a’ ane to the sang, — 

I’m Madge of the couutry, I’m Madge of the town, 

And I’m Madge of the lad I am blithest to own. 

The Lady of Beever in diamonds may shine, 

But has not a heart half so lightsome as mine. 

I am Queen of the Wake, and I’m Lady of May, 

And I lead the blithe ring round the May-pole to-day. 

The wildfire that flashes so fair and so free 
Was never so bright or so bonny as me. 

I like that the best o’ a’ my sangs,’ continued the maniac, 
‘ because he made it. * I am often singing it, and that’s maybe 
the reason folk ca’ me Madge Wildfire. I aye answer to the 
name, though it’s no my ain, for what’s the use of making a 
fash % ’ 

‘ But ye shouldna sing upon the Sabbath at least,’ said Jeanie, 
who, amid all her distress and anxiety, could not help being 
scandalised at the deportment of her companion, especially as 
they now approached near to the little village. 

‘ Ay ! is this Sunday % ’ said Madge. ‘ My mother leads sic 
a life, wi’ turning night into day, that ane loses a’ count o’ the 
days o’ the week, and disna ken Sunday frae Saturday. Besides, 
it’s a’ your Whiggery : in England folks sing when they like. 
And then, ye ken, you are Christiana and I am Mercy ; and 
ye ken, as they went on their way, they sang.’ And she 
immediately raised one of John Bunyan’s ditties : 

‘ He that is down need fear no fall, 

He that is low no pride ; 

He that is humble ever shall 
Have God to be his guide. 

Fulness to such a burthen is 
That go on pilgrimage ; 

Here little, and hereafter bliss. 

Is best from age to age. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


319 


And do ye ken, Jeanie, I think there’s much truth in that 
book, the Pilgrim^s Progress. The boy that sings that song 
was feeding his father’s sheep in the Valley of Humiliation, 
and Mr. Great- Heart says that he lived a merrier life, and 
had more of the herb called heart’s -ease in his bosom, than 
they that wear silk and velvet like me, and are as bonny as I 
am.’ 

Jeanie Deans had never read the fanciful and delightful 
parable to which Madge alluded. Bunyan was, indeed, a rigid 
Calvinist, but then he was also a member of a Baptist congrega- 
tion, so that his works had no place on David Deans’s shelf of 
divinity. Madge, however, at some time of her life had been 
well acquainted, as it appeared, with the most popular of his 
performances, which, indeed, rarely fails to make a deep im- 
pression upon children and people of the lower rank. 

‘ I am sure,’ she continued, ‘ I may weel say I am come 
out of the City of Destruction, for my mother is Mrs. Bat’s- 
eyes, that dwells at Deadman’s Corner; and Frank Levitt 
and Tyburn Tam, they may be likened to Mistrust and Guilt, 
that came galloping up, and struck the poor pilgrim to the 
ground with a great club, and stole a bag of silver, which 
was most of his spending money, and so have they done to 
many, and will do to more. But now we will gang to the 
Interpreter’s house, for I ken a man that will play the Inter- 
preter right weel; for he has eyes lifted up to heaven, the best 
of books in his hand, the law of truth written on his lips, and 
he stands as if he pleaded wi’ men. 0 if I had minded what 
he had said to me, I had never been the castaway creature 
that I am ! But it is all over now. But we’ll knock at the 
gate, and then the keeper will admit Christiana, but Mercy 
will be left out ; and then I’ll stand at the door trembling and 
crying, and then Christiana — that’s you, Jeanie — will intercede 
for me ; and then Mercy — that’s me, ye ken — will faint ; and 
then the Interpreter — yes, the Interpreter, that’s Mr. Staunton 
himself — will come out and take me — that’s poor, lost, demented 
me — by the hand, and give me a pomegranate, and a piece of 
I honeycomb, and a small bottle of spirits, to stay my fainting ; 
and then the good times will come back again, and we’ll be the 
i happiest folk you ever saw.’ 

: In the midst of the confused assemblage of ideas indicated 

in this speech, Jeanie thought she saw a serious purpose on 
the part of Madge to endeavour to obtain the pardon and 
countenance of some one whom she had offended ; an attempt 


320 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


the most likely of all others to bring them once more into con- 
tact with law and legal protection. She therefore resolved to 
be guided by her while she was in so hopeful a disposition, and 
act for her own safety according to circumstances. 

They were now close by the village, one of those beautiful 
scenes which are so often found in merry England, where the 
cottages, instead of being built in two direct lines on each 
side of a dusty highroad, stand in detached groups, inter- ! 
spersed not only with large oaks and elms, but with fruit- 
trees, so many of which were at this time in flourish that the 
grove seemed enamelled with their crimson and white blossoms. 
In the centre of the hamlet stood the parish church and its little 
Gothic tower, from which at present was heard the Sunday 
chime of bells. i 

‘We will wait here until the folk are a’ in the church — they j 
ca’ the kirk a church in England, Jeanie, be sure you mind ' 
that — for if I was gaun forward amang them, a’ the gaitts o’ 
boys and lasses wad be crying at Madge Wildfire’s tail, the 
little hellrakers ! and the beadle would be as hard upon us as 
if it was our fault. I like their skirling as ill as he does, I 
can tell him ; I’m sure I often wish there was a het peat douii « 
their throats when they set them up that gate.’ | 

Conscious of the disorderly appearance of her own dress after j 
the adventure of the preceding night, and of the grotesque habit C 
and demeanour of her guide, and sensible how important it was | 
to secure an attentive and patient audience to her strange story 
from some one who might have the means to protect her, Jeanie 
readily acquiesced in Madge’s proposal to rest under the trees, 
by which they were still somewhat screened, until the com- 
mencement of service should give them an opportunity of enter- 
ing the hamlet without attracting a crowd around them. She 
made the less opposition, that Madge had intimated that this 
was not the village where her mother was in custody, and 
that the two squires of the pad were absent in a different 
direction. 

She sate herself down, therefore, at the foot of an oak, and 
by the assistance of a placid fountain which had been dammed 
up for the use of the villagers, and which served her as a 
natural mirror, she began — no uncommon thing with a Scottish 
maiden of her rank — to arrange her toilette in the open air, and 
bring her dress, soiled and disordered as it was, into such order 
as the place and circumstances admitted. 

She soon perceived reason, however, to regret that she had 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


321 


set about this task, however decent and necessary, in the present 
time and society. Madge Wildfire, who, among other indications 
of insanity, had a most overweening opinion of those charms to 
which, in fact, she had owed her misery, and whose mind, like 
a raft upon a lake, was agitated and driven about at random by 
each fresh impulse, no sooner beheld Jeanie begin to arrange her 
hair, place her bonnet in order, rub the dust from her shoes 
and clothes, adjust her neck-handkerchief and mittens, and so 
forth, than with imitative zeal she began to bedizen and trick 
herself out with shreds and remnants of beggarly finery, which 
she took out of a little bundle, and which, when disposed around 
her person, made her appearance ten times more fantastic and 
apish than it had been before. 

Jeanie gi'oaned in spirit, but dared not interfere in a matter 
so delicate* Across the man’s cap or riding-hat which she wore, 
Madge placed a broken and soiled white feather, intersected 
with one which had been shed from the train of a peacock. 
To her dress, which was a kind of riding-habit, she stitched, 
pinned, and otherwise secured a large furbelow of artificial 
flowers, all crushed, wrinkled, and dirty, which had first be- 
decked a lady of quality, then descended to her abigail, and 
dazzled the inmates of the servants’-hall. A tawdry scarf of 
yellow silk, trimmed with tinsel and spangles, which had seen 
as hard service and boasted as honourable a transmission, was 
next flung over one shoulder, and fell across her person in the 
manner of a shoulder-belt, or baldrick. Madge then stripped 
off the coarse ordinary shoes which she wore, and replaced 
them by a pair of dirty satin ones, spangled and embroidered 
to match the scarf, and furnished with very high heels. She 
had cut a willow switch in her morning’s walk, almost as long 
as a boy’s fishing-rod. This she set herself seriously to peel, 
and when it was transformed into such a wand as the Treasurer 
or High Steward bears on public occasions, she told Jeanie that 
she thought they now looked decent, as young women should do 
upon the Sunday morning, and that, as the bells had done ring- 
ing, she was willing to conduct her to the Interpreter’s house. 

Jeanie sighed heavily to think it shoiild be her lot on the 
Lord’s day, and during kirk-time too, to parade the street of 
an inhabited village with so very grotesque a comrade ; but 
necessity had no law, since, without a positive quarrel with 
the madwoman, which, in the circumstances, would have been 
very unadvisable, she could see no means of shaking herself 
free of her society. 


VII 


21 


322 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


As for poor Madge, she was completely elated with personal .i 
vanity, and the most perfect satisfaction concerning her own! 
dazzling dress and superior appearance. They entered the 
hamlet without being observed, except by one old woman, who, ; 
being nearly ‘high-gravel blind,’ was only conscious that some-j 
thing very fine and glittering was passing by, and dropped as| 
deep a reverence to Madge as she \vould have done to a countess. i 
This filled up the measure of Madge’s self-approbation. She' 
minced, she ambled, she smiled, she simpered, and waved Jeanie 
Deans forward with the condescension of a noble chaperon, who i 
has undertaken the charge of a country miss on her first journey 
to the capital. I 

Jeanie followed in patience, and with her eyes fixed on the , 
ground, that she might save herself the mortification of seeing | 
her companion’s absurdities ; but she started when, ascending t 
two or three steps, she found herself in the churchyard, and saw i?. 
that Madge was making straight for the door of the church. :: 
As Jeanie had no mind to enter the congregation in such ^ 
company, she walked aside from the pathway, and said in a ? 
decided tone, ‘ Madge, I will wait here till the church comes 
out ; you may go in by yourself if you have a mind.’ : 

As she spoke these words, she was about to seat herself upon 
one of the gravestones. ^ 

Madge was a little before Jeanie when she turned aside ; but 
suddenly changing her course, she followed her with long strides, 
and, with every feature inflamed with passion, overtook and 
seized her by the ami. ‘ Do ye think, ye ungratefu’ wretch, 
that I am gaun to let you sit doun upon my father’s grave ? 
The deil settle ye doun ! if ye dinna rise and come into the 
Interpreter’s house, that’s the house of God, wi’ me, but I’ll j 
rive every dud aff your back ! ’ { 

She adapted the action to the phrase ; for with one clutch { 
she stripped Jeanie of her straw bonnet and a handful of her ’ 
hair to boot, and threw it up into an old yew-tree, where it 
stuck fast. Jeanie’s first impulse was to scream, but conceiving 
she might receive deadly harm before she could obtain the 
assistance of any one, notwithstanding the vicinity of the i 
church, she thought it wiser to follow the madwoman into the 
congregation, where she might find some means of escape from j 
her, or at least be secured against her violence. But when she ' 
meekly intimated her consent to follow Madge, her guide’s I 
uncertain brain had caught another train of ideas. She held 1 
Jeanie fast with one hand, and with the other pointed to the j 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


323 


inscription on the gravestone, and commanded her to read it. 
Jeanie obeyed, and read these words : — 


‘ Tins Monument was ekected to the Memory of Donald 
Murdockson of the King’s xxvi., or Cameronian 
Regiment, a sincere Christian, a brave Soldier, and 

A FAITHFUL SERVANT, BY HIS GRATEFUL AND SORROWING 

Master, Robert Staunton.’ 


‘It’s very weel read, Jeanie; it’s just the very words,’ said 
Madge, whose ire had now faded into deejj melancholy, and with 
a step which, to Jeanie’s great joy, was uncommonly quiet and 
mournful, she led her companion towards the door of the church. 

It was one of those old-fashioned Gothic parish churches 
which are frequent in England, the most cleanly, decent, and 
reverential places of worship that are, perhaps, anywhere to 
bo found in the Christian world. Yet, notwithstanding the 
decent solemnity of its exterior, Jeanie was too faithful to the 
directory of the Presbyterian Kirk to have entered a prelatic 
place of worship, and would, upon any other occasion, have 
thought that she beheld in the porch the venerable figure of her 
father waving her back from the entrance, and pronouncing in 
a solemn tone, ‘ Cease, my child, to hear the instruction which 
causeth to err from the words of knowledge.’ But in her 
present agitating and alarming situation, she looked for safety 
to this forbidden place of assembly, as the hunted animal will 
sometimes seek shelter from imminent danger in the human 
habitation, or in other places of refuge most alien to its nature 
and habits. Not even the sound of the organ, and of one or 
two flutes which accompanied the psalmody, prevented her from 
following her guide into the chancel of the church. 

No sooner had Madge put her foot upon the pavement, and 
become sensible that she was the object of attention to the 
I spectators, than she resumed all the fantastic extravagance of 
deportment which some transient touch of melancholy had 
; banished for an instant. She swam rather than walked up the 
centre aisle, dragging Jeanie after her, whom she held fast by 
the hand. She would, indeed, have fain slipped aside into the 
pew nearest to the door, and left Madge to ascend in her own 
manner and alone to the high places of the synagogue ; but 
this was impossible, without a degree of violent resistance which 
j seemed to her inconsistent with the time and place, and she was 
accordingly led in captivity up the whole length of the church 


324 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


by her grotesque conductress, who, with half-shut eyes, a prim 
smile upon her lips, and a mincing motion with her hands, 
which corresponded with the delicate and affected pace at which 
she was pleased to move, seemed to take the general stare of 
the congregation which such an exhibition necessarily excited 
as a high compliment, and which she returned by nods and 
half courtesies to individuals amongst the audience whom she 
seemed to distinguish as acquaintances. Her absurdity was 
enhanced in the eyes of the spectators by the strange contrast 
which she formed to her companion, who, with dishevelled hair, 
downcast eyes, and a face glowing with shame, was dragged, as 
it were, in triumph after her. 

Madge’s airs were at length fortunately cut short by her 
encountering in her progress the looks of the clergyman, who 
fixed upon her a glance at once steady, compassionate, and 
admonitory. She hastily opened an empty pew which happened 
to be near her, and entered, dragging in Jeanie after her. 
Kicking Jeanie on the shins by way of hint that she should 
follow her example, she sunk her head upon her hand for the 
space of a minute. Jeanie, to w’hom this posture of mental 
devotion was entirely new, did not attempt to do the like, but 
looked round her with a bewildered stare, which her neighbours, 
judging from the company in which they saw her, very natur- 
ally ascribed to insanity. Every person in their immediate 
vicinity drew back from this extraordinary couple as far as the 
limits of their pew permitted ; but one old man could not get 
beyond Madge’s reach ere she had snatched the prayer-book 
from his hand and ascertained the lesson of the day. She then 
turned up the ritual, and, with the most overstrained enthusiasm 
of gesture and manner, showed Jeanie the passages as they were 
read in the service, making, at the same time, her own responses 
so loud as to be heard above those of every other person. 

Notwithstanding the shame and vexation which Jeanie felt 
in being thus exposed in a place of worship, she could not and 
durst not omit rallying lier spirits so as to look around her 
and consider to whom she ought to appeal for protection so 
soon as the service should be concluded. Her first ideas natur- 
ally fixed upon the clergyman, and she was confimied in the 
resolution by observing that he was an aged gentleman, of a 
dignified appearance and deportment, who read the service with 
an undisturbed and decent gravity, which brought back to be- 
coming attention those younger members of the congregation 
who had been disturbed by the extravagant behaviour of Madge 



Copyri'jht by A. X* <.'• Jihifk 

MADGE WILDFIHK LEADING JKANIE INTO CHURCH. 



THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


325 


Wildfire. To the clergyman, therefore, Jeanie resolved to make 
her appeal when the service was over. 

It is tme, she felt disposed to be shocked at his surplice, of 
which she had heard so much, but which she had never seen 
upon the person of a preacher of the Word. Then she was 
confused by the change of posture adopted in different parts of 
the ritual, the more so as Madge Wildfire, to whom they seemed 
familiar, took the opportunity to exercise authority over her, 
pulling her up and pushing her down with a bustling assiduity 
which Jeanie felt must make them both the objects of painful 
attention. But, notwithstanding these prejudices, it was her 
prudent resolution, in this dilemma, to imitate as nearly as she 
could w'hat was done around her. ‘ The prophet,’ she thought, 
‘permitted Naaman the Syrian to bow even in the house of 
Rimmon. Surely if I, in this streight, worship the God of my 
fathers in mine own language, although the manner thereof be 
strange to me, the Lord will pardon me in this thing.’ 

In this resolution she became so much confinned that, with- 
drawing herself from Madge as far as the pew permitted, she 
endeavoured to evince, by serious and undeviating attention to 
what was passing, that her mind was composed to devotion. 
Her tormentor would not long have permitted her to remain 
quiet, but fatigue overpowered her, and she fell fast asleep in 
the other corner of the pew. 

J eanie, though her mind in her own despite sometimes re- 
verted to her situation, compelled herself to give attention to 
a sensible, energetic, and well -composed discourse upon the 
practical doctrines of Christianity, which she could not help 
approving, although it was every word written down and read 
by the preacher, and although it was delivered in a tone and 
gesture very different from those of Boanerges Stormheaven, 
who was her father’s favourite preacher. The serious and placid 
attention with which Jeanie listened did not escape the clergy- 
man. Madge Wildfire’s entrance had rendered him apprehensive 
of some disturbance, to provide against which, as far as possible, 
he often turned his eyes to the part of the church w^here J eanie 
and she were placed, and became soon aware that, although the 
loss of her head -gear and the awkwardness of her situation 
had given an uncommon and anxious air to the features of the 
former, yet she was in a state of mind very different from that 
pf her companion. When he dismissed the congregation, he 
observed her look around with a wild and terrified look, as if 
uncertain what course she ought to adopt, and noticed that 


326 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


she approached one or two of the most decent of the con- 
gregation, as if to address them, and then shrunk back timidly, 
on observing that they seemed to shun and to avoid her. 
The clergyman was satisfied there must be something extra- 
ordinary in all this, and as a benevolent man, as well as a 
good Christian pastor, he resolved to inquire into the matter 
more minutely. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


There govern’d in that year 
A stern, stout churl — an angry overseer. 

Crabbe. 

While Mr. Staunton, ior such was this worthy clergyman’s 
name, was laying aside his gown in the vestry, Jeanie was in 
the act of coming to an open rupture with Madge. 

‘We must return to Mummer’s bam directly,’ said Madge ; 
‘ we’ll be ower late, and my mother will be angry.’ 

‘I am not going back with you, Madge,’ said Jeanie, taking 
out a guinea and offering it to her ; ‘ I am much obliged to 
you, but I maun gang my ain road.’ 

‘ And me coming a’ this way out o’ my gate to pleasure you, 
ye ungratefu’ cutty,’ answered Madge ; ‘ and me to be brained 
by my mother when I gang hame, and a’ for your sake ! But 
I will gar ye as good ’ 

‘For God’s sake,’ said Jeanie to a man who stood beside 
them, ‘ keep her off ; she is mad ! ’ 

‘ Ey, ey,’ answered the boor ; ‘ I hae some guess of that, and 
I trow thou be’st a bird of the same feather. Howsomever, 
Madge, I red thee keep hand off her, or I’se lend thee a whister- 
poop.’ 

Several of the lower class of the parishioners now gathered 
round the strangers, and the cry arose among the boys that 
‘ there was a-going to be a fite between mad Madge Murdocksoii 
and another Bess of Bedlam.’ But while the fry assembled 
with the humane hope of seeing as much of the fun as possible, 
the laced cocked hat of the beadle was discerned among the 
multitude, and all made way for that person of awful authority. 
His first address was to Madge. 

‘What’s brought thee back again, thou silly donnot, to 
plague this parish ? Hast thou brought ony more bastards wi’ 
thee to lay to honest men’s doors ? or does thou think to burden 


328 WAVERLEY NOVELS 

US with this goose, that’s as gare-brained as thysell, as if rates 
were no up enow ? Away wi’ thee to thy thief of a mother ; | 
she’s fast in the stocks at Barkston town-end. Away wi’ ye i. 
out o’ the parish, or I’se be at ye wdth the ratan.’ I 

Madge stood sulky for a minute ; but she had been too often ■' 
taught submission to the beadle’s authority by ungentle means 
to feel courage enough to dispute it. | 

‘ And my mother — my puir auld mother, is in the stocks at j 
Barkston! This is a’ your "wyte. Miss Jeanie Deans; but I’ll 
be upsides wi’ you, as sure as my name’s Madge Wildfire — I 
mean Murdockson. God help me, I forget my very name in 
this confused waste ! ’ 

So saying, she turned upon her heel and went off, followed 
by all the mischievous imps of the village, some crying, ‘ Madge, 
canst thou tell thy name yet ? ’ some pulling the skirts of her 
dress, and all, to the best of their strength and ingenuity, exer- 
cising some new device or other to exasperate her into frenzy. 

Jeanie saw her departure with infinite delight, though she i 
wished that, in some way or other, she could have requited the > 
service Madge had conferred upon her. I 

In the meantime, she applied to the beadle to know whether ’ 

‘ there was any house in the village where she could be civilly 
entertained for her money, and whether she could be permitted 
to speak to the clerg 3 rman ? ’ 

‘ Ay, ay, we’se ha’ reverend care on thee ; and I think,’ ! 
answered the man of constituted authority, ‘ that, unless thou | 
answer the Rector all the better, Ave’se spare thy money, and 1 
gie thee lodging at the parish charge, young woman.’ i 

‘Where am I to go then ?’ said Jeanie, in some alarm. I 

‘ Why, I am to take thee to his Reverence, in the first place, 
to gie an account o’ thysell, and to see thou comena to be a 
burden upon the parish.’ 

‘ I do not wish to burden any one,’ replied Jeanie ; ‘ I have 
enough for my own wants, and only wish to get on my journey 
safely.’ ; 

‘ Why, that’s another matter,’ replied the beadle, ‘ an if it be 
true ; and I think thou dost not look so pollrumptious as thy 
playfellow yonder. Thou wouldst be a mettle lass enow, an 
thou wert snog and snod a bit better. Come thou away, then ; 
the Rector is a good man.’ 

‘Is that the minister,’ said Jeanie, ‘who preached ’ 

‘ The minister ! Lord help thee 1 What kind o’ Presbyterian 
art thou ? Why, ’tis the Rector — the Rector’s sell, woman, and 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


329 


there isna the like o’ him in the county, nor the four next to 
it. Come away — away with thee ; we munna bide here.’ 

‘ I am sure I am very willing to go to see the minister,’ said 
Jeanie; ‘for, though he read his discourse, and wore that sur- 
plice, as they call it here, I cannot but think he must be a veiy' 
worthy God-fearing man, to preach the root of the matter in 
the way he did.’ 

The disappointed rabble, finding that there was like to be 
no farther sport, had by this time dispersed, and Jeanie, with 
her usual patience, followed her consequential and surly, but 
not brutal, conductor towards the rectory. 

This clerical mansion was large and commodious, for the 
living was an excellent one, and the advowson belonged to a 
very wealthy family in the neighbourhood, who had usually 
bred up a son or nephew to the church, for the sake of inducting 
him, as opportunity ofiered, into this very comfortable provision. 
In this manner the rectory of Willingham had always been 
considered as a direct and immediate appanage of Willingham 
Hall ; and as the rich baronets to whom the latter belonged had 
usually a son, or brother, or nephew, settled in the living, the 
utmost care had been taken to render their habitation not 
merely respectable and commodious, but even dignified and 
imposing. 

It was situated about four hundred yards from the village, 
and on a rising groimd w'hich sloped gently upward, covered 
with small inclosures, or closes, laid out irregularly, so that the 
old oaks and elms, which were planted in hedge-rows, fell into 
perspective, and were blended together in beautiful irregularity. 
When they approached nearer to the house, a handsome gate- 
way admitted them into a lawn, of naiTOw dimensions, indeed, 
but which was interspersed with large sweet-chestnut trees and 
beeches, and kept in handsome order. The front of the house 
was irregular. Part of it seemed very old, and had, in fact, 
been the residence of the incumbent in Romish times. Suc- 
cessive occupants had made considerable additions and improve- 
ments, each in the taste of his own age, and without much 
regard to symmetry. But these incongruities of architecture 
were so graduated and happily mingled, that the eye, far from 
being displeased with the combinations of various styles, saw 
nothing but what was interesting in the varied and intricate 
pile which they exhibited. Fruit-trees displayed on the southern 
wall, outer staircases, various places of entrance, a combination 
of roofs and chimneys of difierent ages, united to render the 


330 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


front, not indeed beautiful or grand, but intricate, perplexed, i 
or, to use Mr. Price’s appropriate phrase, picturesque. The 
most considerable addition was that of the present Rector, who, |r 
‘ being a bookish man,’ as the beadle was at the pains to inform j 
Jeanie, to augment, perhaps, her reverence for the person before 
Avhom she was to appear, had built a handsome library and 
parlour, and no less than two additional bedrooms. ■ 

‘ Mony men would hae scrupled such expense,’ continued the ' 
parochial officer, ‘ seeing as the living mun go as it pleases Sir I 
Edmund to will it ; but his Reverence has a canny bit land of i? 
his own, and need not look on two sides of a penny.’ ; 

Jeanie could not help comparing the irregular yet extensive ' 
and commodious pile of building before her to the ‘ manses ’ in ; 
her own country, where a set of penurious heritors, professing 
all the while the devotion of their lives and fortunes to the j 
Presbyterian establishment, strain their inventions to discover \ 
what may be nipped, and clipped, and pared from a building j 
which forms but a poor accommodation even for the present 
incumbent, and, despite the superior advantage of stone 
masonry, must, in the course of forty or fifty years, again 
burden their descendants with an expense which, once liberally j 
and handsomely employed, ought to have freed their estates 
from a recurrence of it for more than a century at least. 

Behind the Rector’s house the ground sloped down to a 
small river, which, without possessing the romantic vivacity 
and rapidity of a northern stream, was, nevertheless, by its 
occasional appearance through the ranges of willows and 
poplars that crowned its banks, a very pleasing accompaniment 
to the landscape. ‘ It was the best trouting stream,’ said the 
beadle, whom the patience of Jeanie, and especially the assur- 
ance that she was not about to become a burden to the parish, ! 
had rendered rather communicative — ‘ the best trouting stream J 
in all Lincolnshire ; for when you got lower there was nought 
to be done wi’ fly-fishing.’ 

Turning aside from the principal entrance, he conducted 
Jeanie towards a sort of portal connected with the older part 
of the building, which was chieiy occupied by servants, and ' 
knocking at the door, it was opened by a servant in grave | 
purple livery, such as befitted a wealthy and dignified clergyman, i 

‘ How dost do, Tummas ? ’ said the beadle ; ‘ and how’s young 
Measter Staunton?’ 

‘ Why, but poorly — but poorly, Measter Stubbs. Are you 
wanting to see his Reverence ? ’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


331 


‘ Ay, ay, Tiimmas ; please to say I ha’ brought up the young 
woman as came to service to-day with mad Madge Murdockson ; 
she se^ms to be a decentish koind o’ body; but I ha’ asked 
her never a question. Only I can tell his Reverence that she 
is a Scotchwoman, I judge, and as flat as the fens of Holland.’ 

Tummas honoured Jeanie Deans "with such a stare as the 
pampered domestics of the rich, whether spiritual or temporal, 
usually esteem it part of their privilege to bestow upon the 
poor, and then desired Mr. Stubbs and his charge to step in till 
he informed his master of their presence. 

The room into which he showed them was a sort of steward’s 
parlour, hung with a county map or two, and three or four 
prints of eminent persons connected with the county, as Sir 
William Monson, James York the blacksmith of Lincoln,* and 
the famous Peregrine, Lord Willoughby, in complete armour, 
looking as when he said, in the words of the legend below the 
engraving — 

‘ Stand to it, noble pikemen, 

And face ye well about : 

And shoot ye sharp, bold bowmen, 

And we will keep them out. 

Ye musquet and calliver-men, 

' Do you prove true to me, 

I’ll be the foremost man in fight, 

Said brave Lord Willoughbee.’ 

When they had entered this apartment, Tummas as a matter 
of course offered, and as a matter of course Mr. Stubbs accepted, 
a ‘ summat ’ to eat and drink, being the respectable relics of a 
gammon of bacon, and a whole whiskin^ or black pot, of sufficient 
double ale. To these eatables Mr. Beadle seriously inclined 
himself, and (for we must do him justice) not without an invita- 
tion to Jeanie, in which Tummas joined, that his prisoner or 
charge would follow his good example. But although she 
might have stood in need of refreshment, considering she had 
tasted no food that day, the anxiety of the moment, her own 
sparing and abstemious habits, and a bashful aversion to eat 
in company of the two strangers, induced her to decline their 
courtesy. So she sate in a chair apart, while Mr. Stubbs and 
Mr. Tummas, who had chosen to join his friend in consideration 
that dinner was to be put back till the afternoon service was 
over, made a hearty luncheon, which lasted for half an hour, 
and might not then have concluded, had not his Reverence 

* Author of the Union of Hono^cr, a treatise on English Heraldry, London, 1641 
{Laing). 


332 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


rung his bell, so that Tummas was obliged to attend his master. 
Then, and rio sooner, to save himself the labour of a second 
journey to the other end of the house, he announced to his 
master the arrival of Mr. Stubbs, with the other madwoman, as 
he chose to designate Jeanie, as an event which had just taken 
place. He returned with an order that Mr. Stubbs and the 
young woman should be instantly ushered up to the library. 

The beadle bolted in haste his last mouthful of fat bacon, 
washed down the greasy morsel with the last rinsings of the 
pot of ale, and immediately marshalled Jeanie through one or 
two intricate passages, w'hich led from the ancient to the more 
modern buildings, into a handsome little hall, or ante -room, 
adjoining to the library, and out of which a glass door opened 
to the lawn. 

‘ Stay here,’ said Stubbs, ‘ till I tell his Reverence you are 
come.’ 

So saying, he opened a door and entered the library. 

Without wishing to hear their conversation, Jeanie, as she 
was circumstanced, could not avoid it ; for as Stubbs stood by 
the door, and his Reverence was at the upper end of a large 
room, their conversation was necessarily audible in the ante- 
room. 

‘ So you have brought the young woman here at last, Mr. 
Stubbs. I expected you some time since. You know I do not 
wish such persons to remain in custody a moment without some 
inquiry into their situation.’ 

‘Very true, your Reverence,’ replied the beadle; ‘but the 
young woman had eat nought to-day, and soa Measter Tummas 
did set down a drap of drink and a morsel, to be sure.’ 

‘ Thomas was very right, Mr. Stubbs ; and what has become 
of the other most unfortunate being ? ’ 

‘ Why,’ replied Mr. Stubbs, ‘ I did think the sight on her 
would but vex your Reverence, and soa I did let her go her 
ways back to her mother, who is in trouble in the next parish.’ 

‘ In trouble ! that signifies in prison, I suppose ? ’ said Mr. 
Staunton. 

‘ Ay, truly ; something like it, an it like your Reverence.’ 

‘Wretched, unhappy, incorrigible woman!’ said the clergy- 
man. ‘ And what sort of person is this companion of hers ? ’ 

‘ Why, decent enow, an it like your Reverence,’ said Stubbs ; 
‘ for aught I sees of her, there’s no harm of her, and she says 
she has cash enow to carry her out of the county.’ 

‘ Cash ! that is always what you think of, Stubbs. But has 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


333 


she sense ? — has she her wits 1 — has she the capacity of taking 
care of herself?’ 

‘Why, your Reverence,’ replied Stubbs, ‘I cannot just say : 
I will be sworn she was not born at Witt-ham;* for Gafter 
Gibbs looked at her all the time of service, and he says she 
could not turn up a single lesson like a Christian, even though 
she had Madge Murdockson to help her ; but then, as to fending 
for hersell, why, she’s a bit of a Scotchwoman, your Reverence, 
and they say the worst donnot of them can look out for their 
own turn; and she is decently put on enow, and not be- 
chounched like t’other.’ 

‘Send her in here, then, and do you remain below, Mr. 
Stubbs,’ 

This colloquy had engaged Jeanie’s attention so deeply that 
it was not until it was over that she observed that the sashed 
door, which, we have said, led from the ante -room into the 
garden, was opened, and that there entered, or rather was 
borne in by two assistants, a young man of a very pale and 
sickly appearance, whom they lifted to the nearest couch, and 
placed there, as if to recover from the fatigue of an unusual 
exertion. Just as they were making this arrangement, Stubbs 
came out of the library and summoned Jeanie to enter it. She 
obeyed him, not without tremor; for, besides the novelty of 
the situation to a girl of her secluded habits, she felt also as if 
the successful prosecution of her journey was to depend upon 
the impression she should be able to make on Mr. Staunton. 

It is true, it was difficult to suppose on what pretext a person 
travelling on her own business, and at her own charge, could 
be interrupted upon her route. But the violent detention she 
had already undergone was sufficient to show that there existed 
persons at no great distance who had the interest, the inclina- 
tion, and the audacity forcibly to stop her journey, and she 
felt the necessity of having some countenance and protection, 
at least till she should get beyond their reach. While these 
things passed through her mind, much faster than our pen and 
ink can record, or even the reader’s eye collect the meaning 
of its traces, Jeanie found herself in a handsome library, and 
in presence of the Rector of Willingham. The well-furnished 
presses a-nd shelves which surrounded the large and handsome 
apartment contained more books than Jeanie imagined existed in 
the world, being accustomed to consider as an extensive collec- 

* A proverbial and pimning expression in that county, to intimate that a person 
is not very clever. 


334 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


tion two fir shelves, each about three feet long, which contained 
her father’s treasured volumes, the whole pith and marrow, as 
he used sometimes to boast, of modern divinity. An orrery, 
globes, a telescope, and some other scientific implements con- 
veyed to Jeanie an impression of admiration and wonder, not 
unmixed with fear; for, in her ignorant apprehension, they 
seemed rather adapted for magical purposes than any other ; < 
and a few stuffed animals (as the Rector was fond of natural \ 
history) added to the impressive character of the apartment. | 

Mr. Staunton spoke to her with great mildness. He observed j 
that, although her appearance at church had been uncommon, | 
and in strange, .and, he must add, discreditable society, and [ 
calculated, upon the whole, to disturb the congregation during ; 
divine worship, he wished, nevertheless, to hear her own account 
of herself before taking any steps which his duty might seem 
to demand. He was a justice of peace, he informed her, as 
well as a clergyman. 

‘His honour (for she would not say his reverence) was 
very civil and kind,’ was all that poor Jeanie could at first 
bring out. 

‘ Who are you, young woman ? ’ said the clergyman, more 
peremptorily, ‘and what do you do in this country, and in 
such company? We allow no strollers or vagrants here.’ 

‘I am not a vagrant or a stroller, sir,’ said Jeanie, a little 
roused by the supposition. ‘ I am a decent Scotch lass, travel- 
ling through the land on my own business and my own expenses; 
and I was so unhappy as to fall in with bad company, and 
was stopped a’ night on my journey. And this puir creature, 
who is something light-headed, let me out in the morning.’ 

‘ Bad company ! ’ said the clergyman. ‘ I am afraid, young | 
woman, you have not been sufficiently anxious to avoid them.’ | 

‘Indeed, sir,’ returned Jeanie, ‘I have been brought up to j 
shun evil communication. But these wicked people were thieves, j 
and stopped me by violence and mastery.’ 

‘ Thieves ! ’ said Mr. Staunton ; ‘ then you charge them with 
robbery, I suppose ? ’ 

‘ No, sir ; they did not take so much as a boddle from me,’ 
answered Jeanie; ‘nor did they use me ill, otherwise than by j 
confining me.’ i 

The clergyman inquired into the particulars of her adventure, 
which she told him from point to point. 

‘This is an extraordinary, and not a very probable, tale, 
young woman,’ resumed Mr. Staunton. ‘ Here has been, accord- 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


335 


ing to your account, a great violence committed without any 
adequate motive. Are you aware of the law of this country — 
that if you lodge this charge you will be bound over to prosecute 
this gang ? ’ 

Jeanie did not understand him, and he explained that the 
English law, in addition to the inconvenience sustained by 
persons w]|o have been robbed or injured, has the goodness to 
entrust to them the care and the expense of appearing as pro- 
secutoi-s. 

Jeanie said, ‘ that her business at London was express ; all 
she wanted was, that any gentleman would, out of Christian 
charity, protect her to some town where she could hire horses 
and a guide ; and, finally,’ she thought, ‘ it would be her father’s 
mind that she was not free to give testimony in an English 
court of justice, as the land was not under a direct Gospel 
dispensation.’ 

Mr. Staunton stared a little, and asked if her father was a 
Quaker. 

‘God forbid, sir,’ said Jeanie. ‘He is nae schismatic nor 
sectary, nor ever treated for sic black commodities as theirs, 
and that’s weel kenn’d o’ him.’ 

‘ And what is his name, pray ? ’ said Mr. Staunton. 

‘David Deans, sir, the cow -feeder at St. Leonard’s Craigs, 
near Edinburgh.’ 

A deep groan from the ante-room prevented the Rector from 
♦replying, and, exclaiming, ‘ Good God ! that unhappy boy ! ’ he 
left Jeanie alone, and hastened into the outer apartment. 

Some noise and bustle was heard, but no one entered the 
library for the best part of an hour. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


' Fantastic passions’ maddening brawl ! 

And shame and terror over all ! 

Deeds to be hid which were not hid, 

Which, all confused, I could not know 
Whether I suffer’d or I did, 

For all seem’d guilt, remorse, or woe ; 

My own, or others, still the same 
Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame. 

Coleridge. 

During the interval while she was thus left alone, Jeanie 
anxiously revolved in her mind what course was best for her to 
pursue. She was impatient to continue her journey, yet she 
feared she could not safely adventure to do so while the old 
hag and her assistants were in the neighbourhood, without risk- 
ing a repetition of their violence. She thought slie could collect 
from the conversation which she had partly overheard, and also 
from the wild confessions of Madge Wildfire, that her mother 
had a deep and revengeful motive for obstructing her journey 
if possible. And from whom could she hope for assistance if 
not from Mr. Staunton 'I His whole appearance and demeanour 
seemed to encourage her hopes. His features were handsome, 
though marked with a deep cast of melancholy ; his tone and 
language were gentle and encouraging ; and, as he had served 
in the army for several years during his youth, his air retained 
that easy frankness which is peculiar to the profession of arms. 
He was, besides, a minister of the Gospel ; and although a 
worshipper, according to Jeanie’s notions, in the court of the 
Gentiles, and so benighted as to wear a surplice ; although he 
read the Common Prayer, and wrote down every word of his 
sermon before delivering it ; and although he was, moreover, in 
strength of lungs, as well as pith and marrow of doctrine, vastly 
inferior to Boanerges Stormheaven, Jeanie still thought he must 
be a very different person from Curate Kiltstoup and other 
prelatical divines of her father’s earlier days, who used to get 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


337 


dnink in their canonical dress, and hound out the dragoons 
against the wandering Canieronians. The house seemed to be 
in some disturbance, but as she could not suppose she was 
altogether forgotten, she thought it better to remain quiet in 
the apartment where she had been left till some one should 
take notice of her. 

The first who entered was, to her no small delight, one of 
her own sex, a motherly-looking aged person of a housekeeper. 
To her Jeanie explained her situation in a few words, and begged 
her assistance. 

The dignity of a housekeeper did not encourage too much 
familiarity with a person who was at the rectory on justice 
business, and whose character might seem in her eyes somewhat 
precarious ; but she was civil, although distant. 

‘ Her young master,’ she said, ‘ had had a bad accident by a 
fall from his horse, which made him liable to fainting fits; -he 
had been taken very ill just now, and it was impossible his 
Reverence could see Jeanie for some time; but that she need 
not fear his doing all that was just and proper in her behalf 
the instant he could get her business attended to.’ She con- 
cluded by offering to show Jeanie a room, where she might 
remain till his Reverence was at leisure. 

Our heroine took the opportunity to request the means of 
adjusting and changing her dress. 

The housekeeper, in whose estimation order and cleanliness 
ranked high among personal virtues, gladly complied with a 
request so reasonable; and the change of dress which Jeanie’s 
bundle furnished made so important an improvement in her 
appearance, that the old lady hardly knew the soiled and dis- 
ordered traveller, whose attire showed the violence she had 
sustained, in the neat, clean, quiet-looking little Scotchwoman 
who now stood before her. Encouraged by such a favourable 
alteration in her appearance, Mrs. Dalton ventured to invite 
Jeanie to partake of her dinner, and was equally pleased with 
the decent propriety of her conduct during that meal. 

‘Thou canst read this book, canst thou, young woman?’ 
said the old lady, when their meal was concluded, laying her 
hand upon a large Bible. 

‘I hope sae, madam,’ said Jeanie, surprised at the question; 
‘ my father wad hae wanted mony a thing ere I had wanted that 
schuling.’ 

‘The better sign of him, young woman. There are men 
here, well-to-pass in the world, would not want their share of a 

22 


vn 


338 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Leicester plover, and that’s a bag-pudding, if fasting for three 
hours would make all their poor children read the Bible from 
end to end. Take thou the book, then, for my e^^es are some- 
thing dazed, and read where thou listest : it’s the only book 
thou canst not happen wrong in.’ 

Jeanie was at first tempted to turn up the parable of the 
good Samaritan, but her conscience checked her, as if it were an 
use of Scripture not for her own edification, but to work upon 
the mind of others for the relief of her worldly afflictions ; and 
under this scrupulous sense of duty she selected, in preference, 
a chapter of the prophet Isaiah, and read it, notwithstanding 
her northern accent and tone, with a devout propriety which 
greatly edified Mrs. Dalton. 

‘Ah,’ she said, ‘ an all Scotchwomen were sic as thou ! But 
it was our luck to get born devils of thy country, I think, every 
one worse than t’other. If thou knowest of any tidy lass like 
thysell, that wanted a place, and could bring a good character, 
and would not go laiking about to wakes and fairs, and wore 
shoes and stockings all the day round — why. I’ll not say but 
we might find room for her at the rectory. Hast no cousin or 
sister, lass, that such an offer would suit ? ’ 

This was touching upon a sore point, but Jeanie was spared 
the pain of replying by the entrance of the same man-servant 
she had seen before. 

‘Measter wishes to see the young woman from Scotland,’ 
was Tummas’s address. 

‘ Go to his Reverence, my dear, as fast as you can, and tell 
him all your story ; his Reverence is a kind man,’ said Mrs. 
Dalton. ‘ I Avill fold down the leaf, and make you a cup of tea, | 
with some nice muffin, against you come down, and that’s what i 
you seldom see in Scotland, girl.’ 

‘Measter’s waiting for the young woman,’ said Tummas, 
impatiently. 

‘Well, Mr. Jack Sauce, and what is your business to put in 
your oar ? And how often must I tell you to call Mr. Staunton 
his Reverence, seeing as he is a dignified clergyman, and not be 
meastering, meastering him, as if he were a little petty squire ? ’ 

As Jeanie was now at the door, and ready to accompany 
Tummas, the footman said nothing till he got into the passage, 
when he muttered, ‘ There are moe masters than one in this 
house, and I think we shall have a mistress too, an Dame Dalton 
carries it thus.’ 

Tummas led the way through a more intricate range of 


THE HEART OF^ MIDLOTHIAN 


339 


passages than J eanie had yet threaded, and ushered her into an 
apartment which was darkened by the closing of most of the 
window -shutters, and in which was a bed with the curtains 
partly drawn. 

‘ Here is the young woman, sir,’ said Tummas. 

‘Very well,’ said a voice from the bed, but not that of his 
Reverence ; ‘ be ready to answer the bell, and leave the room.’ 

‘There is some mistake,’ said Jeanie, confounded at finding 
herself in the apartment of an invalid'; ‘the servant told me 
tliat the minister ’ 

‘ Don’t trouble yourself,’ said the invalid, ‘ there is no mis- 
^take. I know more of your affairs than my father, and I can 
'manage them better. Leave the room, Tom.’ The servant 
! obeyed. ‘We must not,’ said the invalid, ‘lose time, when we 
j have little to lose. Open the shutter of that window.’ 

I She did so, and, as he drew aside the curtain of his bed, the 
I light fell on his pale countenance, as, turbaned with bandages 
j and dressed in a nightgown, he lay, seemingly exhausted, upon 
j the bed. 

‘Look at me,’ he said, ‘Jeanie Deans; can you not recollect 
' me?’ 

‘No, sir,’ said she, full of surprise. ‘I was never in this 
country before.’ 

‘ But I may have been in yours. Think — recollect. I should 
faint did I name the name you are most dearly bound to loathe 
and to detest. Think — remember ! ’ 

A terrible recollection flashed on Jeanie, which every tone 
of the speaker confirmed, and which his next words rendered 
certainty. 

‘Be composed — remember Muschat’s Cairn and the moon- 
light night ! ’ 

Jeanie sunk down on a chair, with clasped hands, and gasped 
in agony. 

‘Yes, here I lie,’ he said, ‘like a crushed snake, writhing 
H with impatience at my incapacity of motion ; here I lie, when 
I ought to have been in Edinburgh, trying every means to save 
a life that is dearer to me than my own. How is your sister? 
how fares it with her ? — condemned to death, I know it, by this 
time ! 0, the horse that carried me safely on a thousand 

Brrands of folly and wickedness — that he should have broke 
iown with me on the only good mission I have undertaken for 
rears ! But I must rein in my passion ; my frame cannot 
;ndure it, and I have much to say. Give me some of the 


340 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


cordial which stands on that table. Why do you tremble? 
But you have too good cause. Let it stand ; I need it not.’ 

Jeanie, however reluctant, approached him with the cup 
into which she had poured the draught, and could not forbear 
saying, ‘ There is a cordial for the mind, sir, if the wicked will 
turn from their transgressions and seek to the Physician of 
souls.’ 

‘ Silence ! ’ he said, sternly ; ‘ and yet I thank you. But 
tell me, and lose no time in doing so, what you are doing in 
this country? Remember, though I have been your sister’s 
worst enemy, yet I v/ill serve her with the best of my blood, 
and I will serve you for her sake ; and no one can serve you to 
such purpose, for no one can know the circumstances so well ; 
so speak without fear.’ ' 

‘I am not afraid, sir,’ said Jeanie, collecting her spirits. ‘I ■ 
trust in God ; and if it pleases Him to redeem my sister’s ' 
captivity, it is all I seek, whosoever be the instrument. But, ; 
sir, to be plain with you, I dare not use your counsel, unless I ; 
were enabled to see that it accords with the law which I must i 
rely upon.’ i 

‘ The devil take the Puritan ! ’ cried George Staunton, for so f 
we must now call him. ‘ I beg your pardon ; but I am naturally 
impatient, and you drive me mad ! What harm can it possibly 
do you to tell me in what situation your sister stands, and your 
own expectations of being able to assist her ? It is time enough ! 
to refuse my advice when I offer any which you may think i 
improper. I speak calmly to you, though ’tis against my [. 
nature ; but don’t urge me to impatience : it will only render 
me incapable of serving Effie.’ ; 

There was in the looks and words of this unhappy young i 
man a sort of restrained eagerness and impetuosity, which ; 
seemed to prey upon itself, as the impatience of a fiery steed ! 
fatigues itself with churning upon the bit. After a moment’s 
consideration, it occurred to Jeanie that she was not entitled . 
to withhold from him, whether on her sister’s account or her : 
own, the account of the fatal consequences of the crime which ! 
he had committed, nor to reject such advice, being in itself 
lawful and innocent, as he might be able to suggest in the way , 
of remedy. Accordingly, in as few words as she could express j 
it, she told the history of her sister’s trial and condemnation, 
and of her own journey as far as Newark. He appeared to ‘ 
listen in the utmost agony of mind, yet repressed every violent 
symptom of emotion, whether by gesture or sound, which might " 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


341 


have interrupted the speaker, and, stretched on his couch like 
the Mexican monarch on his bed of live coals, only the contor- 
tions of his cheek, and the quivering of his limbs, gave indica-> 
tion of his sufferings. To much of what she said lie listened 
with stifled groans, as if he were only hearing those miseries 
confirmed whose fatal reality he had known before ; but when 
she pursued her tale through the circumstances which had 
interrupted her journey, extreme surprise and earnest attention 
appeared to succeed to the symptoms of remorse which he had 
before exhibited. He questioned Jeanie closely concerning the 
appearance of the two men, and the conversation which she 
had overheard between the taller of them and the woman. 

When Jeanie mentioned the old woman having alluded to 
her foster-son — ‘ It is too true,’ he said ; ‘ and the source from 
which I derived food, when an infant, must have communicated 
to me the wretched — the fated — propensity to vices that were 
strangers in my own family. But go on.’ 

Jeanie passed slightly over her journey in company with 
Madge, having no inclination to repeat what might be the effect 
of mere raving on the part of her companion, and therefore her 
tale was noAV closed. 

Young Staunton lay for a moment in profound meditation, 
and at length spoke with more composure than he had yet dis- 
played during their interview. ‘ You are a sensible, as well as 
a good, young woman, Jeanie Deans, and I will tell you more 
of my story than I have told to any one. Story did I call it ? 
it is a tissue of folly, guilt, and misery. But take notice, I 
do it because I desire your confidence in return — that is, that 
you will act in this dismal matter by my advice and direction. 
Therefore do I speak.’ 

‘ I will do what is fitting for a sister, and a daughter, and a 
Christian woman to do,’ said Jeanie ; ‘ but do not tell me any of 
your secrets. It is not good that I should come into your 
counsel, or listen to the doctrine which causeth to err.’ 

‘ Simple fool ! ’ said the young man. ‘ Look at me. My 
head is not horned, my foot is not cloven, my hands are not 
garnished with talons ; and, since I am not the very devil him- 
self, what interest can any one else have in destroying the hopes 
with which you comfort or fool yourself ? Listen to me patiently, 
and you will find that, when you have heard my counsel, you 
may go to the seventh heaven with it in your pocket, if you 
have a mind, and not feel yourself an ounce heavier in the 
ascent.’ 


345 ^ 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


At the risk of being somewhat heavy, as explanations Usually j 
prove, we must here endeavour to combine into a distinct nar- j 
rative information which the invalid communicated in a manner ! 
at once too circumstantial, and too much broken by passion, j 
to admit of our giving his precise words. Part of it, indeed, he | 
read from a manuscript, which he had perhaps drawn up for ' 
the information of his relations after his decease. I 

‘ To make my tale short — this wretched hag, this Margaret i 
Murdockson, was the wife of a favourite servant of my father ; ? 
she had been my nurse ; her husband was .dead ; she re- 
sided in a cottage near this place ; she had a daughter who ^ 
grew up, and was then a beautiful but very giddy girl ; her i 
mother endeavoured to promote her marriage with an old and f 
wealthy churl in the neighbourhood. The girl saw me fre- 
quently ; she was familiar with me, as our connexion seemed ^ 
to permit, and I — in a word, I wronged her cruelly. It was ^ 
not so bad as your sister’s business, but it was sufficiently I 
villainous; her folly should have been her protection. Soon \ 
after this I was sent abroad. To do my father justice, if I have 
turned out a fiend, it is not his fault : he used the best means. ^ 
When I returned, I found the wretched mother and daughter 
had fallen into disgrace, and were chased from this country. 
My deep share in their shame and misery was discovered ; my 
father used very harsh language ; we quarrelled. I left his 
house, and led a life of strange adventure, resolving never again j 
to see my father or my father’s home. | 

‘And now comes the story ! Jeanie, I put my life into your 
hands, and not only my own life, which, God knows, is not worth 
saving, but the happiness of a respectable old man, and the 
honour of a family of consideration. My love of low society, as 
such propensities as I was cursed with are usually termed, w^as, 1 
I think, of an uncommon kind, and indicated a nature which, ! 
if not depraved by early debauchery, would have been fit for 
better things. I did not so much delight in the wild revel, the ji 
low humour, the unconfined liberty of those with whom I p 
associated, as in the spirit of adventure, presence of mind in jl 
peril, and sharpness of intellect which they displayed in pro- 
secuting their maraudings upon the revenue, or similar adven- i 

tures. Have you looked round this rectory ? Is it not a f 

sweet and pleasant retreat 

Jeanie, alarmed at this sudden change of subject, replied in | 
the affirmative. I 

‘Well! I wish it had been ten thousand fathoms under} 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 343 

ground, with its church-lands, and tithes, and all that belongs 
to it ! Had it not been for this cursed rectory, I should have 
been permitted to follow the bent of my own inclinations 
and the profession of anus, and half the courage and address 
that I have displayed among smugglers and deer- stealers 
would have secured me an honourable rank among my con- 
temporaries. Why did I not go abroad when I left this house ? 
Why did I leave it at all 1 — why ? But it came to that point 
with me that it is madness to look back, and misery to look 
forward.’ 

He paused, and then proceeded with more composure. 

‘ The chances of a wandering life brought me unhappily to 
Scotland, to embroil myself in worse and more criminal actions 
than I had yet been concerned in. It was now I became ac- 
quainted with Wilson, a remarkable man in his station of life — 
quiet, composed, and resolute, firm in mind, and uncommonly 
strong in person, gifted with a sort of rough eloquence which 
raised him above his companions. Hitherto I had been 

As dissolute as desperate, yet through both 

Were seen some sparkles of a better hope. 

But it was this man’s misfortune, as well as mine, that, not- 
withstanding the difference of our rank and education, he 
acquired an extraordinary and fascinating influence over me, 
which I can only account for by the calm determination of his 
character being superior to the less sustained impetuosity of 
mine. Where he led, I felt myself bound to follow ; and 
strange was the courage and address which he displayed in his 
pursuits. While I was engaged in desperate adventures, under 
so strange and dangerous a preceptor, I became acquainted 
with your unfortunate sister at some sports of the young 
people in the suburbs, which she frequented by stealth ; and 
her ruin proved an interlude to the tragic scenes in which I 
was now deeply engaged. Yet this let me say : the villainy 
was not premeditated, and I was firmly resolved to do her all 
the justice which marriage could do, so soon as I should be 
able to extricate myself from my unhappy course of life, and 
embrace some one more suited to my birth. I had wild visions 
— visions of conducting her as if to some poor retreat, and 
introducing her at once to rank and fortune she never dreamt 
of. A friend, at my request, attempted a negotiation with my 
father, which was protracted for some time, and renewed at 
different intervals. At length, and just when I expected my 


S44 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


father’s pardon, he learned by some means or other my infamy, 
painted in even exaggerated colours, which was, God knows, 
unnecessary. He wrote me a letter — how it found me out I 
know not — inclosing me a sum of money, and disowning me 
for ever. I became desperate — I became frantic — I readily 
joined Wilson in a perilous smuggling adventure in which we 
miscarried, and was willingly blinded by his logic to consider 
the robbery of the officer of the customs in Fife as a fair and 
honourable reprisal. Hitherto I had observed a certain line 
in my criminality, and stood free of assaults upon personal 
property, but now I felt a wild pleasure in disgracing myself as 
much as possible. 

‘ The plunder was no object to me. I abandoned that to my 
comrades, and only asked the post of danger. I remember 
well, that when I stood with my drawn sword guarding the 
door while they committed the felony, I had not a thought of 
my own safety. I was only meditating on my sense of supposed 
wrong from my family, my impotent thirst of vengeance, and 
how it would sound in the haughty ears of the family of 
Willingham, that one of their descendants, and the heir-apparent 
of their honours, should perish by the hands of the hangman 
for robbing a Scottish gauger of a sum not equal to one-fifth 
part of the money I had in my pocket-book. We were taken ; 
I expected no less. We were condemned ; that also I looked 
for. But death, as he approached nearer, looked grimly ; and 
the recollection of your sister’s destitute condition determined 
me on an effort to save my life. I forgot to tell you that in 
Edinburgh I again met the woman Murdockson and her 
daughter. She had followed the camp when young, and had 
now, under pretence of a trifling traffic, resumed predatory 
habits, with which she had already been too familiar. Our first 
meeting was stormy ; but I was liberal of what money I had, 
and she forgot, or seemed to forget, the injury her daughter had 
received. The unfortunate girl herself seemed hardly even to 
know her seducer, far less to retain any sense of the injury she 
had received. Her mind is totally alienatfed, which, according 
to her mother’s account, is sometimes the consequence of an 
unfavourable confinement. But it was my dmng. Here was 
another stone knitted round my neck to sink me into the pit of 
perdition. Every look, every word of this poor creature, her 
false spirits, her imperfect recollections, her allusions to things 
which she had forgotten, but which were recorded in my con- 
science, v/ere stabs of a poniard. Stabs did I say ? they were 


THE HEAHT OE MIDLOTHIAN 


846 


tearing with hot pincers, and scalding the raw wound with burn- 
ing sulphur ; they were to be endured, however, and they were 
endured. I return to my prison thoughts. 

‘It was not the least miserable of them that your sister’s 
time approached. I knew her dread of you and of her father. 
She often said she would die a thousand deaths ere you should 
know her shame ; yet her confinement must be provided for. 
I knew this woman Murdockson was an infernal hag, but I 
thought she loved me, and that money would make her true. 
She had procured a file for Wilson and a spring-saw for me ; and 
she undertook readily to take charge of Effie during her illness, 
ill which she had skill enough to give the necessary assistance. 
I gave her the money which my father had sent me. It was 
settled that she should receive Effie into her house in the mean- 
time, and wait for farther directions from me, when I should 
effect my escape. I communicated this purpose, and recom- 
mended the old hag to poor Effie by a letter, in which I recollect 
that I endeavoured to support the character of Macheath under 
condemnation — a fine, gay, bold-faced ruffian, who is game to 
the last. Such, and so wretchedly poor, was my ambition ! 
Yet I had resolved to forsake the courses I had been engaged 
in, should I be so fortunate as to escape the gibbet. My design 
w’as to marry your sister and go over to the West Indies. I had 
still a considerable sum of money left, and I trusted to be able, 
in one w'ay or other, to provide for myself and my wife. 

‘We made the attempt to escape, and by the obstinacy of 
Wilson, who insisted upon going first, it totally miscarried. 
The undaunted and self-denied manner in which he sacrificed 
himself to redeem his error, and accomplish my escape from 
the Tolbooth Church, you must have heard of : all Scotland 
rang with it. It was a gallant and extraordinary deed. All 
men spoke of it ; all men, even those who most condemned the 
habits and crimes of this self-devoted man, praised the heroism 
of his friendship. I have many vices, but cowardice or want 
of gratitude are none of the number. I resolved to requite 
his generosity, and even your sister’s safety became a secondary 
consideration wdth me for the time. To effect Wilson’s libera- 
tion was my principal object, and I doubted not to find the 
means. 

‘Yet I did not forget Effie neither. The bloodhounds of 
the law were so close after me, that I dared not trust myself 
near any of my old haunts ; but old Murdockson met me by 
appointment, and informed me that your sister had happily 


846 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


been delivered of a boy. I charged the hag to keep her patient’s 
mind easy, and let her want for nothing that money could pur- 
chase, and I retreated to Fife, where, among my old associates 
of Wilson’s gang, I hid myself in those places of concealment 
where the men engaged in that desperate trade are used to find 
security for themselves and their uncustomed goods. Men 
who are disobedient both to human and divine laws are not 
always insensible to the claims of courage and generosity. We 
were assured that the mob of Edinburgh, strongly moved with 
the hardships of Wilson’s situation and the gallantry of his 
conduct, would back any bold attempt that might be made to 
rescue him even from the foot of the gibbet. Desperate as the 
attempt seemed, upon my declaring myself ready to lead the 
onset on the guard, I found no want of followers who engaged 
to stand by me, and returned to Lothian, soon joined by some | 
steady associates, prepared to act whenever the occasion might ; 
require. 

‘ I have no doubt I should have rescued him from the very , 
noose that dangled over his head,’ he continued with animation, : 
which seemed a flash of the interest which he had taken in ' 
such exploits ; ‘ but amongst other precautions, the magistrates ; 
had taken one — suggested, as we afterwards learned, by the 1 
unhappy wretch Porteous — which effectually disconcerted my i 
measures. They anticipated by half an hour the ordinary j 
period for execution ; and, as it had been resolved amongst us 
that, for fear of observation from the officers of justice, we i 
should not show ourselves upon the street until the time of I 
action approached, it followed that all was over before our i 
attempt at a rescue commenced. It did commence, however, 
and I gained the scaffold and cut the rope with my own hand. 
It was too late ! The bold, stout-hearted, generous criminal 
was no more, and vengeance was all that remained to us — a 
vengeance, as I then thought,, doubly due from my hand, to 
whom Wilson had given life and liberty when he could as easily i 
have secured his own.’ 

‘0, sir,’ said Jeanie, ‘did the Scripture never come into 
your mind, “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay it”?’ 

‘ Scripture ! Why, I had not opened a Bible for five years,’ 
answered Staunton. 

‘ Wae’s me, sirs,’ said Jeanie, ‘ and a minister’s son too ! ’ 

‘It is natural for you to say so; yet do not interrupt 
me, but let me finish my most accursed history. The beast, 
Porteous, who kept firing on the people long after it had ceased 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


847 


to be necessary, became the object of their hatred for having 
overdone his duty, and of mine for liaving done it too well. 
We — that is, I and the other determined friends of Wilson — 
resolved to be avenged ; but caution was necessary. I thought 
I had been marked by one of the officers, and therefore con- 
tinued to lurk about the vicinity of Edinburgh, but without 
daring to venture within the walls. At length I visited, at 
the hazard of my life, the place where I hoped to find my 
future wife and my son ; they were both gone. Dame Mur- 
dockson informed me that, so soon as Effie heard of the mis- 
carriage of the attempt to rescue Wilson, and the hot pursuit 
after me, she fell into a brain fever ; and that being one day 
obliged to go out on some necessary business and leave her 
alone, she had taken that opportunity to escape, and she had 
not seen her since. I loaded her with reproaches, to which she 
listened with the most provoking and callous composure ; for 
it is one of her attributes that, violent and fierce as she is 
upon most occasions, there are some in which she shows the 
most imperturbable calmness. I threatened her with justice ; 
she said I had more reason to fear justice than she had. I felt 
she was right, and was silenced. I threatened her with venge- 
ance; she replied in nearly the same words, that, to judge 
by injuries received, I had more reason to fear her vengeance 
than she to dread mine. She was again right, and I was left 
without an answer. I flung myself from her in indignation, 
and employed a comrade to make inquiry in the neighbourhood 
of St. Leonard’s concerning your sister; but ere I received 
his answer, the opening quest of a well-scented terrier of the 
law drove me from the vicinity of Edinburgh to a more distant 
and secluded place of concealment. A secret and trusty emis- 
sary at length brought me the account of Porteous’s condemna- 
tion, and of your sister’s imprisonment on a criminal charge ; 
thus astounding one of mine ears, while he gratified the other. 

‘ I again ventured to the Pleasance — again charged Murdock- 
son with treachery to the unfortunate Effie and her child, though 
I could conceive no reason, save that of appropriating the whole 
of the money I had lodged with her. Your narrative throws 
light on this, and shows another motive, not less powerful 
because less evident — the desire of wreaking vengeance on the 
seducer of her daughter, the destroyer at once of her reason 
and reputation. Great God ! how I wish that, instead of the 
revenge she made choice of, she had delivered me up to the 
cord ! ’ 


348 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ But what account did the wretched woman give of Effie 
and the bairn?’ said Jeanie, who, during this long and agitat- 
ing narrative, had firmness and discernment enough to keep 
her eye on such points as might throw light on her sister’s 
misfortunes. 

‘ She would give none,’ said Staunton ; ‘ she said the mother 
made a moonlight flitting from her house, with the infant in 
her arms ; that she had never seen either of them since ; that 
the lass might have thrown the child into the North Loch or 
the Quarry Holes, for what she knew, and it was like enough 
she had done so.’ 

‘ And how came you to believe that she did not speak the 
fatal truth?’ said Jeanie, trembling. 

‘ Because, on this second occasion, I saw her daughter, and 
I understood from her that, in fact, the child had been re- 
moved or destroyed during the illness of the mother. But 
all knowledge to be got from her is so uncertain and indirect, 
that I could not collect any farther circumstances. Only the 
diabolical character of old Murdockson makes me augur the 
worst.’ 

‘ The last account agrees with that given by my poor sister,’ 
said Jeanie; ‘but gang on wi’ jmur ain tale, sir.’ 

‘Of this I am certain,’ said Staunton, ‘that Effie, in her 
senses, and with her knowledge, never injured living creature. 
But what could I do in her exculpation ? Nothing ; and there- 
fore my whole thoughts were turned towards her safety. I 
was under the cursed necessity of suppressing my feelings 
towards Murdockson : my life was in the hag’s hand — that I 
cared not for; but on my life hung that of your sister. I 
spoke the wretch fair ; I appeared to confide in her ; and to 
me, so far as I was personally concerned, she gave proofs of 
extraordinary fidelity. I was at first uncertain what measures 
I ought to adopt for your sister’s liberation, when the general 
rage excited among the citizens of Edinburgh on account of 
the reprieve of Porteous, suggested to me the_ daring idea of 
forcing the jail, and at once carrying off your sister from the 
clutches of the law, and bringing to condign punishment a 
miscreant who had tormented the unfortunate Wilson even 
in the hour of death, as if he had been a wild Indian taken 
captive by an hostile tribe. I flung myself among the multi- 
tude in the moment of fermentation ; so did others among 
Wilson’s mates, who had, like me, been disappointed in the 
hope of glutting their eyes with Poiteous’s execution. All 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


349 


was organised, and I was chosen for the captain. I felt not — 
I do not now feel — compunction for what was to be done, and 
has since been executed.’ 

‘ 0, God forgive ye, sir, and bring ye to a better sense of 
your ways ! ’ exclaimed J eanie, in horror at the avowal of such 
violent sentiments. 

‘ Amen,’ replied Staunton, ‘ if my sentiments are wrong. 
But I repeat that, although willing to aid the deed, I could 
have wished them to have chosen another leader; because I 
foresaw that the great and general duty of the night would 
interfere with the assistance which I proposed to render Effie. 
I gave a commission, however, to a trusty friend to protect her 
to a place of safety, so soon as the fatal procession had left the 
jail. But for no persuasions which I could use in the hurry of 
the moment, or which my comrade employed at more length, 
after the mob had taken a different direction, could the un- 
fortunate girl be prevailed upon to leave the prison. His 
arguments were all wasted upon the infatuated victim, and he 
was obliged to leave her in order to attend to his own safety. 
Such was his account ; but perhaps he persevered less steadily 
in his attempt to persuade her than I would have done.’ 

‘Effie was right to remain,’ said Jeanie ; ‘and I love her the 
better for it.’ 

‘ Why will you say so ? ’ said Staunton. 

‘ You cannot understand my reasons, sir, if I should render 
them,’ answered Jeanie, composedly; ‘they that thirst for the 
blood of their enemies have no taste for the well-spring of life.’ 

‘ My hopes,’ said Staunton, ‘ were thus a second time dis- 
appointed. My next efforts were to bring her through her 
trial by means of yourself. How I urged it, and where, you 
cannot have forgotten. I do not blame you for your refusal ; 
it was founded, I am convinced, on principle, and not on in- 
difference to your sister’s fate. For me, judge of me as a man 
frantic ; I knew not what hand to turn to, and all my efforts 
were unavailing. In this condition, and close beset on all 
sides, I thought of what might be done by means of my family 
and their influence. I fled from Scotland ; I reached this place ; 
my miserably wasted and unhappy appearance procured me 
from my father that 2 )ardon which a parent finds it so hard to 
refuse, even to the most undeserving son. And here I have 
awaited in anguish of mind, which the condemned criminal 
might envy, the event of your sister’s trial.’ 

‘Without taking any steps for her relief V said Jeanie. 


850 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ To the last I hoped her case might terminate more favour- 
ably; and it is only two days since that the fatal tidings 
reached me. My resolution was instantly taken. I mounted 
my best horse with the purpose of making the utmost haste to 
London, and there compounding with Sir Robert Walpole for 
your sister’s safety, by surrendering to him, in the person of 
the heir of the family of Willingham, the notorious George 
Robertson, the accomplice of Wilson, the breaker of the tol- 
booth prison, and the well-known leader of the Porteous mob.’ 

‘ But would that save my sistejr ’ said Jeanie in astonishment. 

‘It would, as I should drive my bargain,’ said Staunton. 
‘Queens love revenge as w'ell as their subjects. Little as you 
seem to esteem it, it is a poison which pleases all palates, from 
the prince to the peasant. Prime ministers love no less the 
power of pleasing sovereigns by gratifying their passions. The 
life of an obscure village girl ! Why, I might ask the best of 
the crown-jewels for laying the head of such an insolent con- 
spiracy at the foot of her Majesty, with a certainty of being- 
gratified. All my other plans have failed, but this could not. 
Heaven is just, however, and would not honour me with making 
this voluntary atonement for the injury I have done your sister. 
I had not rode ten miles, when my horse, the best and most 
sure-footed animal in this country, fell with me on a level piece 
of road, as if he had been struck by a cannon-shot. I was 
greatly hurt, and was brought back here in the miserable con- 
dition in which you now see me.’ 

As young Staunton had come to the conclusion, the servant 
opened the door, and, with a voice which seemed intended 
rather for a signal than merely the announcing of a visit, said, 

‘ His Reverence, sir, is coming upstairs to wait upon you.’ 

‘For God’s sake, hide yourself, Jeanie,’ exclaimed Staunton, 

‘ in that dressing-closet ! ’ 

‘ No, sir,’ said Jeanie ; ‘ as-I am here for nae ill, I canna take 
the shame of hiding mysell frae the master o’ the house.’ 

‘ But, good Heavens ! ’ exclaimed George Staunton, ‘ do but 
consider ’ 

Ere he could complete the sentence, his father entered the 
apartment. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


And now, will pardon, comfort, kindness, draw 
The youth from vice ? will honour, duty, law ? 

Crabbe. 

Jeanib arose from her seat and made her quiet reverence when 
the elder Mr. Staunton entered the apartment. His astonish- 
ment was extreme at finding his son in such company. 

‘ I perceive, madam,’ he said, ‘ I have made a mistake re- 
specting you, and ought to have left the task of inteiTogating 
you, and of righting your wrongs, to this young man, wdth 
whom, doubtless, you have been formerly acquainted.’ 

‘ It’s unwitting on my part that I am here,’ said Jeanie ; 
‘ the servant told me his master wished to speak with me.’ 

‘There goes the purple coat over my ears,’ murmured 
Tummas. ‘H — n her, why must she needs speak the truth, 
when she could have as well said anything else she had a mind ? ’ 

‘ George,’ said Mr. Staunton, ‘ if you are still, as you have 
ever been, lost to all self-respect, you might at least have 
spared your father, and your father’s house, such a disgraceful 
scene as this.’ 

‘ Upon my life — upon my soul, sir ! ’ said George, throwing 
his feet over the side of the bed, and starting from his recum- 
bent posture. 

‘ Your life, sir ! ’ interrupted his father, with melancholy 
' sternness — ‘ what sort of life has it been ? Your soul ! alas ! 
what regard have you ever paid to it ? Take care to reform 
; both ere offering either as pledges of your sincerity.’ 

‘On my honour, sir, you do me wrong,’ answered George 
Staunton ; ‘ I have been all that you can call me that’s bad, 
but in the present instance you do me injustice. By my honour, 
you do ! ’ 

‘ Your honour ! ’ said his father, and turned from him, with a 
' look of the most upbraiduig contempt, to Jeanie. ‘From you, 


352 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


young woman, I neither ask nor expect any explanation ; but, j 
as a father alike and as a clergyman, I request your departure ; 
from this house. If your romantic story has been other than a j 
pretext to find admission into it — which, from the society in s 
which you first appeared, I may be permitted to doubt — you j 
will find a justice of peace within two miles, with whom, more i 
properly than with me, you may lodge your complaint.’ i 

‘ This shall not be,’ said George Staunton, starting up to his ' 
feet. ‘ Sir, you are naturally kind and humane ; you shall not i 
become cruel and inhospitable on my account. Turn out that I 
eavesdropping rascal,’ pointing to Thomas, ‘ and get what harts- Jj 
horn drops, or what better receipt you have against fainting, ‘ ' 
and I will explain to you in two words the connexion betwixt , 
this young woman and me. She shall not lose her fair char- 
acter through me. I have done too much mischief to her family : i 
already, and I know too well what belongs to the loss of fame.’ ' 

‘ Leave the room, sir,’ said the Rector to the servant ; and j, 
when the man had obeyed, he carefully shut the door behind | 
him. Then addressing his son, he said sternly, ‘ Now, sir, what i 
new proof of your infamy have you to impart to me ? ’ 1 

Young Staunton was about to speak, but it was one of f 
those moments when persons who, like Jeanie Deans, possess the 
advantage of a steady courage and unruffled temper, can assume 
the superiority over more ardent but less determined spirits. 

‘ Sir,’ she said to the elder Staunton, ‘ ye have an undoubted i j 
right to ask your ain son to render a reason of his conduct. I 
But respecting me, I am but a wayfaring traveller, no' ways [ 
obligated or indebted to you, unless it be for the meal of meat, | 
'which, in my ain country, is vdllingly gien by rich or poor, | 
according to their ability, to those who need it ; and for which, f 
forbye that, I am willing to make payment, if I didna think it J 
would be an affront to offer siller in a house like this, only I ! 
dinna ken the fashions of the country.’ 

‘ This is all very well, young woman,’ said the Rector, a good . 
deal surprised, and unable to conjecture whether to impute | 
Jeanie’s language to simplicity or impertinence — ‘this may be 1 
all very well, but let me bring it to a point. Why do you 
stop this young man’s mouth, and prevent his communicating ; 
to his father and his best friend an explanation, since he says j 
he has one, of circumstances which seem in themselves not a 
little suspicious ? ’ 

‘ He may tell of his ain affairs what he likes,’ answered , 
J eanie ; ‘ but my family and friends have nae right to hae ony t 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


353 


stories told anent them without their express desire ; and, 
as they caniia be here to speak for themselves, I entreat ye 
wadna ask Mr. George Rob — I mean Staunton, or whatever his 
name is — ony questions anent me or my folk ; for I maun be 
free to tell you, that he will neither have the bearing of a 
Christian or a gentleman if he answers you against my express 
desire.’ 

‘ This is the most extraordinary thing I ever met with,’ said 
the Rector, as, after fixing his eyes keenly on the placid yet 
modest countenance of Jeanie, he turned them suddenly upon 
his son. ‘ What have you to say, sir ? ’ 

‘That I feel I have been too hasty in my promise, sir,’ 
answered George Staunton. ‘I have no title to make any 
communications respecting the affairs of this young person’s 
family without her assent.’ 

The elder Mr. Staunton turned his eyes from one to the 
other with marks of surprise. 

‘ This is more, and worse, I fear,’ he said, addressing his son, 
‘ than one of your frequent and disgraceful connexions. I in- 
sist upon knowing the mystery.’ 

‘ I have already said, sir,’ replied his son, rather sullenly, 
‘ that I have no title to mention the affairs of this young woman’s 
family without her consent.’ 

‘And I hae nae mysteries to explain, sir,’ said Jeanie, ‘but 
only to pray you, as a preacher of the Gospel and a gentleman, 
to permit me to go safe to the next public-house on the Lunnon 
road.’ 

‘ I shall take care of your safety,’ said young Staunton ; 
‘you need ask that favour from no one.’ 

‘Do you say so before my face?’ said the justly incensed 
father. ‘Perhaps, sir, you intend to fill up the cup of dis- 
obedience and profligacy by forming a low and disgraceful mar- 
riage ? But let me bid you beware.’ 

‘ If you were feared for sic a thing happening wi’ me, sir,’ 
said Jeanie, ‘ I can only say, that not for all the land, that lies 
between the twa ends of the rainbow wad I be the woman that 
should wed your son.’ 

I ‘ There is something very singular in all this,’ said the elder 
; Staunton ; ‘ follow me into the next room, young woman.’ 

‘Hear me speak first,’ said the young man. ‘I have but 
one word to say. I confide entirely in your prudence ; tell my 
; father as much or as little of these matters as you will, he shall 
know neither more nor less from me.’ 

23 


VII 


354 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


His father darted to him a glance of indignation, which i 
softened into sorrow as he saw him sink down on the couch, 
exhausted with the scene he had undergone. He left the 
apartment, and Jeanie followed him, George Staunton raising f 
himself as she passed the doorway, and pronouncing the word ti 
‘ Remember ! ’ in a tone as monitory as it was uttered by jj 
Charles I. upon the scaffold. The elder Staunton led the way ji 
into a small parlour, and shut the door. ; 

‘Young woman,' said he, ‘there is something in your face ] 
and appearance that marks both sense and simplicity, and, if I " 
am not deceived, innocence also. Should it be otherwise, I can J 
only say, you are the most accomplished hypocrite I have ever ‘ 
seen. I ask to know no secret that you have unwillingness to . 
divulge, least of all those which concern my son. His conduct 
has given me too much unhappiness to permit me to hope 
comfort or satisfaction from him. If you are such as I suppose < 
you, believe me, that whatever unhappy circumstances may , i 
have connected you with George Staunton, the sooner you break j.i 
them through the better.’ I 

‘I think I understand your meaning, sir,’ replied Jeanie ;i 
‘ and as ye are sae frank as to speak o’ the young gentleman in » 
sic a way, I must needs say that it is but the second time of \ 
my speaking wi’ him in our lives, and what I hae heard frae I 
him on these tv/a occasions has been such that I never wish to j 
hear the like again.’ ; j 

‘ Then it is your real intention to leave this part of the 
country, and proceed to London ? ’ said the Rector, . j 

‘ Certainly, sir ; for I may say, in one sense, that the avenger J 
of blood is behind me ; and if I were but assured against mis- * 
chief by the way ’ 

‘ I have made inquiry,’ said the clergyman, ‘ after the sus- i. 
picious characters you described. They have left their place of ' 
rendezvous ; but, as they may be lurking in the neighbourhood, 
and as you say you have special reason to apprehend violence , 
from them, I will put you under the charge of a steady person, ^ 
who will protect you as far as Stamford, and see you into a | 
light coach, Avhich goes from thence to London.’ 

‘A coach is not for the like of me, sir,’ said Jeanie, to whom . 
the idea of a stage-coach was unknown, as, indeed, they were : 
then only used in the neighbourhood of London. ' 

Mr. Staunton briefly explained that she would find that ' 
mode of conveyance more commodious, cheaper, and more safe 
than travelling on horseback. She expressed her gratitude ! 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


356 


with so much singleness of heart, that he was induced to ask 
her whether she wanted the pecuniary means of prosecuting 
her journey. She thanked him, but said she had enough for 
her purpose ; and, indeed, she had husbanded her stock with 
great care. This reply served also to remove some doubts, 
which naturally enough still floated in Mr. Staunton’s mind, 
respecting her character and real purpose, and satisfied him, at 
least, that money did not enter into her scheme of deception, 
if an impostor she should prove. He next requested to know 
what part of the city she wished to go to. 

‘To a very decent merchant, a cousin o’ my ain, a Mrs. 
Glass, sir, that sells snufl* and tobacco, at the sign o’ the 
Thistle, somegate in the town.’ 

Jeanie communicated this intelligence with a feeling that a 
connexion so respectable ought to give her consequence in the 
eyes of Mr. Staunton ; and she was a good deal surprised when 
he answered — ‘ And is this woman your only acquaintance in 
London, my poor girl 1 and have you really no better knowledge 
where she is to be found ? ’ 

‘ I was gaun to see the Duke of Argyle, forbye Mrs. Glass,’ 
said Jeanie ; ‘and if your honour thinks it would be best to go 
there first, and get some of his Grace’s folk to show me my 
cousin’s shop ’ 

‘Are you acquainted with any of the Duke of Argyle’s 
people ? ’ said the Rector. 

‘No, sir.’ 

‘ Her brain must be something touched after all, or it would 
be impossible for her to rely on such introductions. Well,’ 
said he aloud, ‘I must not inquire into the cause of your 
journey, and so I cannot be fit to give you advice how to 
manage it. But the landlady of the house where the coach 
stops is a very decent person ; and as I use her house some- 
times, I will give you a recommendation to her.’ 

Jeanie thanked him for his kindness with her best courtesy, 
and said, ‘ That with his honour’s line, and ane from worthy 
Mrs. Bickerton, that keeps the Seven Stars at York, she did 
not doubt to be well taken out in Lunnon.’ 

‘ And now,’ said he, ‘ I presume you will be desirous to set 
out immediately.’ 

‘ If I had been in an inn, sir, or any suitable resting-place,’ 
answered Jeanie, ‘I wad not have presumed to use the Lord’s 
day for travelling ; but as I am on a journey of mercy, I trust 
my doing so will not be imputed.’ 


356 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ You may, if you choose, remain with Mrs. Dalton for the , 
evening ; but I desire you will have no further correspondence i 
with my son, who is not a proper counsellor for a person of j 
your age, whatever your difficulties may be.’ 

‘Your honour speaks ower truly in that,’ said Jeanie; ‘itj 
was not with my will that I spoke wi’ him just now, and — not | 
to wish the gentleman ony thing but gude — I never wish to | 
see him between the een again.’ 

‘If you please,’ added the Hector, ‘as you seem to be a 
seriously-disposed young woman, you may attend family wor- 
ship in the hall this evening.’ 

‘I thank your honour,’ said Jeanie; ‘but I am doubtful if' 
my attendance would be to edification.’ 

‘ How ! ’ said the Rector ; ‘ so young, and already unfortunate 
enough to have doubts upon the duties of religion ! ’ 

‘God forbid, sir,’ replied Jeanie; ‘it is not for that; but I ! 
have been bred in the faith of the suffering remnant of the | 
Presbyterian doctrine in Scotland, and I am doubtful if I can ^ 
lawfully attend upon your fashion of worship, seeing it has | 
been testified against by many precious souls of our kirk, and 
specially by my worthy father.’ ! 

‘Well, my good girl,’ said the Rector, with a good-humoured [ 
smile, ‘ far be it from me to put any force upon your conscience ; j 
and yet you ought to recollect that the same divine grace dis- [ 
penses its streams to other kingdoms as well as to Scotland, f 
As it is as essential to our spiritual as water to our earthly 
wants, its springs, various in character, yet alike efficacious in ^ 
virtue, are to be found in abundance throughout the Christian j 
world.’ * 

‘ Ah, but,’ said Jeanie, ‘ though the waters may be alike, yet, , 
with your worship’s leave, the blessing upon them may not be : 
equal. It would have been in vain for Naaman the Syrian leper ' 
to have bathed in Pharphar and Abana, rivers of Damascus, 
when it was only the waters of Jordan that were sanctified for 
the cure.’ 

‘ Well,’ said the Rector, ‘ we will not enter upon the great ; 
debate betwixt our national churches at present. We must 
endeavour to satisfy you that at least, amongst our errors, we . 
preserve Christian charity, and a desire to assist our brethren.’ 

He then ordered Mrs. Dalton into his presence, and con- ' 
signed Jeanie to her particular charge, with directions to be ^ 
kind to her, and with assurances that, early in the morning, a 
trusty guide and a good horse should be ready to conduct her : 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


357 


to Stamford. He then took a serious and dignified, yet kind 
leave of her, wishing her full success in the objects of her 
journey, which he said he doubted not were laudable, from the 
soundness of thinking which she had displayed in conversation. 

Jeanie was again conducted by the housekeeper to her own 
apartment. But the evening was not destined to pass over 
without further torment from young Staunton. A paper was 
slipped into her hand by the faithful Tummas, which intimated 
his young master’s desire, or rather demand, to see her instantly, 
and assured her he had provided against interruption. 

‘ Tell your young master,’ said Jeanie, openly, and regard- 
less of all the winks and signs by which Tummas strove to 
make her comprehend that Mrs. Dalton was not to be ad- 
jnitted into the secret of the correspondence, ‘ that I promised 
faithfully to his worthy father that I would not see him again.’ 

‘ Tummas,’ said Mrs. Dalton, ‘ I think you might be much 
more creditably employed, considering the coat you wear and 
the house you live in, than to be carrying messages between 
your young master and girls that chance to be in this house.’ 

‘ Why, Mrs. Dalton, as to that, I was hired to carry messages, 
and not to ask any questions about them ; and it’s not for the 
like of me to refuse the young gentleman’s bidding, if he were 
a little wildish or so. If there was harm meant, there’s no harm 
done, you see.’ 

‘ However,’ said Mrs. Dalton, ‘ I gie you fair warning, Tum- 
mas Ditton, that an I catch thee at this work again, his 
Reverence shall make a clear house of you.’ 

Tummas retired,’ abashed and in dismay. The rest of the 
evening passed away without anything worthy of notice. 

Jeanie enjoyed the comforts of a good bed and a sound 
sleep with grateful satisfaction, after the perils and hardships 
of the preceding day; and such was her fatigue, that she 
slept soundly until six o’clock, when she was awakened by 
Mrs. Dalton, who acquainted her that her guide and horse 
were ready and in attendance. She hastily rose, and, after 
her morning devotions, was soon ready to resume her travels. 
The motherly care of the housekeeper had provided an early 
breakfast, and, after she had partaken of this refreshment, she 
found herself safe seated on a pillion behind a stout Lincoln- 
shire peasant, who was, besides, armed with pistols, to pro- 
tect her against any violence which might be offered. 

They trudged on in silence for a mile or two along a country 
road, which conducted them, by hedge and gateway, into the 


358 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


principal highway, a little beyond Grantham. At length her ; 
master of the horse asked her whether her name was not Jean, 
or Jane, Deans. She answered in the affirmative, with some 
surprise. ‘ Then here’s a bit of a note as concerns you,’ said 
the man, handing it over his left shoulder. ‘ It’s from young 
master, as I judge, and every man about Willingham is fain 
to pleasure him either for love or fear ; for he’ll come to be 
landlord at last, let them say what they like.’ ( 

Jeanie broke the seal of the note, which was addressed to 
her, and read as follows : — | 

‘ You refuse to see me. I suppose you are shocked at my j 
character ; but, in painting myself such as I am, you should | 
give me credit for my sincerity. I am, at least, no hypocrite, j 
You refuse, however, to see me, and your conduct may be \ 
natural; but is it wise? I have expressed my anxiety to 
repair your sister’s misfortunes at the expense of my honour 
— my family’s honour — my own life ; and you think me too 
debased to be admitted even to sacrifice what I have remaining 
of honour, fame, and life in her cause. Well, if the offerer be 
despised, the victim is still equally at hand ; and perhaps there 
may be justice in the decree of Heaven that I shall not have 
the melancholy credit of appearing to make this sacrifice out of 
my own free good-will. You, as you have declined my con- 
currence, must take the whole upon yourself. Go, then, to the 
Duke of Argyle, and, when other arguments fail you, tell him 
you have it in your power to bring to condign punishment the 
most active conspirator in the Porteous mob. He will hear you 
on this topic, should he be deaf to every other. Make your 
own terms, for they will be at your own making. You know 
where I am to be found ; and you may be assured I will not i 
give you the dark side of the hill, as at Muschat’s Cairn : I | 
have no thoughts of stirring from the house I was born in ; ! 
like the hare, I shall be worried in the seat I started from. I I 
repeat it — make your own terms. I need not remind you to 
ask your sister’s life, for that you will do of course ; but make j 
terms of advantage for yourself : ask wealth and reward — office 
and income for Butler — ask anything, you will get anything, 
and all for delivering to the hands of the executioner a man 
most deserving of his office — one who, though young in years, 
is old in wickedness, and whose most earnest desire is, after 
the storms of an unquiet life, to sleep and be at rest.’ 

This extraordinary letter was subscril>ed with the initials 

»G. SJ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 351^ 

J eanie read it over once or twice with great attention, which 
the slow pace of the horse, as he stalked ‘through a deep lane, 
enabled her to do with facility. 

When she had perused this billet, her first employment was 
to tear it into as small pieces as possible, and disperse these 
pieces in the air by a few at a time, so that a document con- 
taining so perilous a secret might not fall into any other per- 
son’s hand. 

The question how far, in point of extremity, she was entitled 
to save her sister’s life by sacrificing that of a person who, 
though guilty towards the state, had done her no injury, formed 
the next earnest and most painful subject of consideration. 
In one sense, indeed, it seemed as if denouncing the guilt of 
Staunton, the cause of her sister’s errors and misfortunes, would 
have been an act of just, and even providential, retribution. 
But Jeanie, in the strict and severe tone of morality in which 
she was educated, had to consider not only the general aspect 
of a proposed action, but its justness and fitness in relation to 
the actor, before she could be, according to her own phrase, 
free to enter upon it. What right had she to make a barter 
between the lives of Staunton and of Effie, and to sacrifice the 
one for the safety of the other? His guilt — that guilt for 
which he was amenable to the laws — was a crime against the 
public indeed, but it was not against her. 

Neither did it seem to her that his share in the death of 
Porteous, though her mind revolted at the idea of using violence 
to any one, was in the relation of a common murder, against 
the perpetrator of which every one is called to aid the public 
magistrate. That violent action was blended with many circum- 
stances which, in the eyes of those of Jeanie’s rank in life, 
if they did not altogether deprive it of the character of 
guilt, softened, at least, its most atrocious features. The 
anxiety of the government to obtain conviction of some of the 
offenders had but served to increase the public feeling which 
connected the action, though violent and irregular, with the 
idea of ancient national independence. The rigorous procedure 
adopted or proposed against the city of Edinburgh, the ancient 
metropolis of Scotland, the extremely unpopular and injudi- 
cious measure of compelling the Scottish clergy, contrary to their 
principles and sense of duty, to promulgate from the pulpit 
the reward offered for the discovery of the perpetrators of this 
slaughter, had produced on the public mind the opposite con- 
sequences from what were intended; and Jeanie felt conscious 


360 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


that, whoever should lodge information concerning that event, ■ 
and for whatsoever purpose it might be done, it would be con- | 
sidered as an act of treason against the independence of Scot- 1 
land. With the fanaticism of the Scotch Presbyterians there I 
was always mingled a glow of national feeling, and Jeanie | 
trembled at the idea of her name being handed down to posterity [ 
with that of the ‘ fause Monteath,’ and one or two others, who, ! 
having deserted and betrayed the cause of their country, are j 
damned to perpetual remembrance and execration among its ' 
peasantry. Yet, to part with Elbe’s life once more, when a ti 
word spoken might save it, pressed severely on the mind of her i 
affectionate sister. ; 

‘ The Lord support and direct me ! ’ said Jeanie, ‘ for it seems | 
to be His will to try me with difficulties far beyond my ain j 
strength.’ i 

While this thought passed through Jeanie’s mind, her guard, | 
tired of silence, began to show some inclination to be communi- ^ 
cative. He seemed a sensible, steady peasant, but not having i 
more delicacy or prudence than is common to those in his 
situation, he, of course, chose the Willingham family as the 
subject of his conversation. From this man Jeanie learned 
some particulars of which she had hitherto been ignorant, and 
which we will briefly recapitulate for the information of the 
reader. 

The father of George Staunton had been bred a soldier, and, 
during service in the West Indies, had married the heiress of a 
wealthy planter. By this lady he had an only child, George 
Staunton, the unhappy young man who has been so often I 
mentioned in this narrative. He passed the first part of his | 
early youth under the charge of a doting mother, and in the 
society of negro slaves, whose study it was to gratify his every 
caprice. His father was a man of W’ortli and sense ; but, as he 
alone retained tolerable health among the officers of the regi- 
ment he belonged to, he was much engaged with his duty. 
Besides, Mrs. Staunton was beautiful and wilful, and enjoyed 
but delicate health ; so that it was difficult for a man of affec- 
tion, humanity, and a quiet disposition to struggle with her on 
the point of her over-indulgence to an only child. Indeed, 
what Mr. Staunton did do towards counteracting the baneful 
effects of his wife’s system, only tended to render it more 
pernicious; for every restraint imposed on the boy in his 
father’s presence was compensated by treble license during his 
absence. So that George Staunton acquired, even in childhood, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


361 


the habit of regarding his father as a rigid censor, from whose 
severity he was desirous of emancipating himself as soon and 
absolutely as possible. 

When he was about ten years old, and when his mind had 
received all the seeds of those evil weeds which afterwards grew 
apace, his mother died, and his father, half heart-broken, re- 
turned to England. To sum up her imprudence and unjustifi- 
able indulgence, she had contrived to place a considerable part 
of her fortune at her son’s exclusive control or disposal ; in 
consequence of which management, George Staunton had not 
been long in England till he learned his independence, and how 
to abuse it. His father had endeavoured to rectify the defects 
of his education by placing him in a well-regulated seminary. 
But although he showed some capacity for learning, his riotous 
conduct soon became intolerable to his teachers. He found 
means (too easily afforded to all youths wdio have certain 
expectations) of procuring such a command of money as enabled 
him to anticipate in boyhood the frolics and follies of a more 
mature age, and, wdth these accomplishments, he was returned 
on his father’s hands as a profligate boy, w'hose example might 
ruin an hundred. 

The elder Mr. Staunton, whose mind, since his wife’s death, 
had been tinged with a melancholy which certainly his son’s 
conduct did not tend to dispel, had taken orders, and was 
inducted by his brother. Sir William Staunton, into the family 
living of Willingham. The revenue was a matter of conse- 
quence to him, for he derived little advantage from the estate 
of his late wife; and his own fortune was that of a younger 
brother. 

He took his son to reside with him at the rectory ; but he 
soon found that his disorders rendered him an intolerable 
inmate. And as the young men of his own rank would not 
endure the purse-proud insolence of the Creole, he fell into 
that taste for low society which is worse than ‘pressing to 
death, whipping, or hanging.’ His father sent him abroad, 
but he only returned wilder and more desperate than before. 
It is true, this unhappy youth was not without his good 
qualities. He had lively wit, good temper, reckless generosity, 
and manners which, w'hile he was under restraint, might pass 
well in society. But all these availed him nothing. He was 
so well acquainted with the turf, the gaming-table, the cock- 
pit, and every worse rendezvous of folly and dissipation, that 
his mother’s fortune was spent before he was twenty-one, and 


362 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


he was soon in debt and in distress. His early history may be 
concluded in the words of our British Juvenal, when describing 
a similar character : — 

Headstrong, determined in his own career, 

He thought reproof unjust, and truth severe. 

The soul’s disease was to its crisis come. 

He first abused and then abjured his home ; 

And when he chose a vagabond to be. 

He made his shame his glory, ‘ Fil be free ! ’ 

‘And yet ’tis pity on Measter George, too,’ continued the 
honest boor, ‘ for he has an open hand, and winna let a poor 
body want an he has it.’ 

The virtue of profuse generosity, by which, indeed, they 
themselves are most directly advantaged, is readily admitted 
by the vulgar as a cloak for many sins. 

At Stamford our heroine was deposited in safety by her 
communicative guide. She obtained a place in the coach, 
which, although termed a light one, and accommodated with no 
fewer than six horses, only reached London on the afternoon 
of the second day. The recommendation of the elder Mr. 
Staunton procured Jeanie a civil reception at the inn where 
the carriage stopped, and, by the aid of Mrs. Bickerton’s corre- 
spondent, she found out her friend and relative Mrs. Glass, by 
whom she was kindly received and hospitably entertained. 

* Crabbe’s Borough, Letter xii. (Laing). 


CHAPTER XXXV 


My name is Argyle, you may well tliink it strange, 

To live at the court and never to change. 

Ballad. 

Few names deserve more honourable mention in the history of 
Scotland, during this period, than that of John Duke of Argyle 
and Greenwich. His talents as a statesman and a soldier were 
generally admitted ; he was not without ambition, but ‘ with- 
out the illness that attends it’ — without that irregularity of 
thought and aim which often excites great men, in his peculiar 
situation (for it was a very peculiar one), to grasp the means 
of raising themselves to power at the risk of throwing a king- 
dom into confusion. Pope has distinguished him as 

Argyle, the state’s whole thunder born to wield, 

And shake alike the senate and the field. 

He was alike free from the ordinary vices of statesmen, false- 
hood, namely, and dissimulation; and from those of waniors, 
inordinate and violent thirst after self-aggrandisement. 

Scotland, his native country, stood at this time in a very 
precarious and doubtful situation. She was indeed united to 
England, but the cement had not had time to acquire consist- 
ence. The irritation of ancient Avrongs still subsisted, and be- 
twixt the fretful jealousy of the Scottish and the supercilious 
disdain of the English quarrels repeatedly occurred, in the 
course of which the national league, so important to the safety 
of both, was in the utmost danger of being dissolved. Scotland 
had, besides, the disadvantage of being divided into intestine 
factions, which hated each other bitterly, and v/aited but a 
signal to break forth into action. 

In such circumstances, another man, with the talents and 
rank of Argyle, but without a mind so happily regulated, would 
have sought to rise from the earth in the whirlwind, and direct 
its fury. He chose a course more safe and more honourable. 


364 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Soaring above the petty distinctions of faction, his voice was 
raised, whether in office or opposition, for those measures which 
were at once just and lenient. His high military talents enabled 
him, during the memorable year 1715, to render such services 
to the house of Hanover as, perhaps, were too great to be 
either acknowledged or repaid. He had employed, too, his 
utmost influence in softening the consequences of that insur- 
rection to the unfortunate gentlemen whom a mistaken sense 
of loyalty had engaged in the affair, and was rewarded by the 
esteem and affection of his countr}^ in an uncommon degree. 
This popularity with a discontented and warlike people \vas 
supposed to be a subject of jealousy at court, where the power 
to become dangerous is sometimes of itself obnoxious, though 
the inclination is not united with it. Besides, the Duke of 
Argyle’s independent and somewhat haughty mode of expressing 
himself in Parliament, and acting in public, were ill calculated 
to attract royal favour. He was, therefore, always respected, 
and often employed ; but he was not a favourite of George the 
Second, his consort, or his ministers. At several different 
periods in his life, the Duke might be considered as in absolute 
disgrace at court, although he could hardly be said to be a 
declared member of opposition. This rendered him the dearer 
to Scotland, because it was usually in her cause that he incurred 
the displeasure of his sovereign ; and upon this very occasion of 
the Porteous mob, the animated and eloquent opposition which 
he had offered to the severe measures which were about to be 
adopted towards the city of Edinburgh was the more gratefully 
received in that metropolis as it was understood that the Duke’s 
interposition had given personal offence to Queen Caroline. 

His conduct upon this occasion, as, indeed, that of all the 
Scottish members of the legislature, with one or two unworthy ex- 
ceptions, had been in the highest degree spirited. The popular 
tradition concerning his reply to Queen Caroline has been given 
already, and some fragments of his speech against the Porteous 
bill are still remembered. He retorted upon the Chancellor, 
Lord Hardwicke, the insinuation that he had stated himself in 
this case rather as a party than as a judge. ‘ I appeal,’ said 
Argyle, ‘ to the House — to the nation, if I can be justly branded 
with the infamy of being a jobber or a partizan. Have I been 
a briber of votes — a buyer of boroughs — the agent of corrup- 
tion for any purpose, or on behalf of any party 1 Consider my 
life, examine my actions in the field and in the cabinet, and 
see where there lies a blot that can attach to my honour, I 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


365 


have shown myself the friend of my country, the loyal subject 
of my king. I am ready to do so again, without an instant’s 
regard to the frowns or smiles of a court. I have experienced 
both, and am prepared with indifference for either. I have 
given my reasons for opposing this bill, and have made it 
appear that it is repugnant to the international treaty of union, 
to the liberty of Scotland, and, reflectively, to that of England, 
to common justice, to common sense, and to the public interest. 
Shall the metropolis of Scotland, the capital of an independent 
nation, the residence of a long line of monarchs, by whom that 
noble city was graced and dignified — shall such a city, for the 
fault of an obscure and unknown body of rioters, be deprived 
of its honours and its privileges, its gates and its guards? 
and shall a native Scotsman tamely behold the havoc ? I glory, 
my lords, in opposing such unjust rigour, and reckon it my 
dearest pride and honour to stand up in defence of my native 
country, while thus laid open to undeserved shame and unjust 
spoliation.’ 

Other statesmen and orators, both Scottish and English, 
used the same arguments ; the bill was gradually stripped of its 
most opj/ressive and obnoxious clauses, and at length ended in 
a fine upon the city of Edinburgh in favour of Porteous’s widow ; 
so that, as somebody observed at the time, the whole of these 
fierce debates ended in making the fortune of an old cookmaid, 
such having been the good woman’s original capacity. 

The court, however, did not forget the baffle they had re- 
ceived in this affair, and the Duke of Argyle, who had con- 
tributed so much to it, was thereafter considered as a person in 
disgrace. It is necessary to place these circumstances under 
the reader’s observation, both because they are connected with 
the preceding and subsequent part of our narrative. 

i The Duke was alone in his study, when one of his gentlemen 
j acquainted him that a country-girl from Scotland was desirous 
! of speaking with his Grace. 

‘ A country-girl, and from Scotland ! ’ said the Duke ; ‘ what 
can have brought the silly fool to London ? Some lover pressed 
and sent to sea, or some stock sunk in the South Sea funds, 
or some such hopeful concern, I suppose, and then nobody 
to manage the matter but MacCallummore. Well, this same 
popularity has its inconveniences. However, show our country- 
woman up, Archibald ; it is ill manners to keep her in attendance.’ 

A young woman of rather low stature, and whose counte- 


366 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


nance might be termed very modest and pleasing in expression, 
though sun-burnt, somewhat freckled, and not possessing regular 
features, was ushered into the splendid library. She wore the 
tartan plaid of her country, adjusted so as partly to cover her 
head, and partly to fall back over her shoulders. A quantity 
of fair hair, disposed with great simplicity and neatness, appeared 
in front of her round and good-humoured face, to which the 
solemnity of her errand, and her sense of the Duke’s rank and 
importance, gave an appearance of deep awe, but not of slavish 
fear or fluttered bashfulness. The rest of Jeanie’s dress was in , 
the style of Scottish maidens of her own class, but arranged i 
with that scrupulous attention to neatness and cleanliness which ! 
we often find united with that purity of mind of which it is , 
a natural emblem. ! 

She stopped near the entrance of the room, made her deepest i 
reverence, and crossed her hands upon her bosom, without utter- '• 
ing a syllable. The Duke of Argyle advanced towards her; | 
and if she admired his graceful deportment and rich dress, 
decorated with the orders which had been deservedly bestowed 
on him, his courteous manner, and quick and intelligent cast of 
countenance, he, on his part, was not less, or less deservedly, 
struck with the quiet simplicity and modesty expressed in the 
dress, manners, and countenance of his humble countrywoman. 

‘Did you wish to speak with me, my bonny lass?’ said the 
Duke, using the encouraging epithet which at once acknow- | 
ledged the connexion betwixt them as country-folk ; ‘ or did you 
wish to see the Duchess ? ’ 

‘My business is with your honour, my Lord — I mean your 
Lordship’s Grace.’ 

‘ And what is it, my good girl ? ’ said the Duke, in the same 
mild and encouraging tone of voice. Jeanie looked at the 
attendant. ‘ Leave us, Archibald,’ said the Duke, ‘ and wait in | 
the ante-room.’ The domestic retired. ‘And now sit down, 1 
my good lass,’ said the Duke; ‘take your breath — take your i 
time, and tell me what you have got to say. I guess by your | 
dress you are just come up from poor old Scotland. Did you 
come through the streets in your tartan plaid ? ’ ! 

‘No, sir,’ said Jeanie; ‘a friend brought me in ane o’ their j 
street coaches — a very decent woman,’ she added, her courage j 
increasing as she became familiar with the sound of her own | 
voice in such a presence ; ‘ your Lordship’s Grace kens her : it’s I 
Mrs. Glass, at the sign o’ the Thistle.’ ! 

‘ 0, my worthy snufF-merchant ! I have always a chat with j 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


367 


Mrs. Glass when I purchase my Scotch high-dried. Well, hut 
your business, my bonny woman : time and tide, you know, 
wait for no one.’ 

‘ Your honour — I beg your Lordship’s pardon, I mean your 
Grace,’ — for it must be noticed that this matter of addressing 
the Duke by his appropriate title had been anxiously inculcated 
upon Jeanie by her friend Mrs. Glass, in whose eyes it was a 
matter of such importance that her last words, as Jeanie left 
the coach were, ‘ Mind to say your Grace ’ ; and Jeanie, who had 
scarce ever in her life spoke to a person of higher quality than 
the Laird of Dumbiedikes, found great difficulty in arranging 
her language according to the rules of ceremony. 

The Duke, who saw her embarrassment, said, with his usual 
affability, ‘Never mind my Grace, lassie; just speak out a 
plain tale, and show you have a Scotch tongue in your head.’ 

‘ Sir, I am muckle obliged. Sir, I am the sister of that poor 
unfortunate criminal, Effie Deans, who is ordered for execution 
at Edinburgh.’ 

‘ Ah ! ’ said the Duke, ‘ I have heard of that unhappy story, 
I think — a case of child-murder, under a special Act of Parlia- 
ment. Duncan Forbes mentioned it at dinner the other day.’ 

‘ And I was come up frae the north, sir, to see what could be 
done for her in the way of getting a reprieve or pardon, sir, or 
the like of that.’ 

‘Alas ! my poor girl,’ said the Duke, ‘you have made a long 
and a sad journey to very little purpose. Your sister is ordered 
for execution.’ 

‘ But I am given to understand that there is law for repriev- 
ing her, if it is in the king’s pleasure,’ said Jeanie. 

‘Certainly there is,’ said the Duke; ‘but that is purely in 
the king’s breast. The crime has been but too common; the 
Scotch crown -lawyers think it is right there should be an 
example. Then the late disorders in Edinburgh have excited 
a prejudice in government against the nation at large, which 
they think can only be managed by measures of intimidation 
and severity. What argument have you, my poor girl, except 
the warmth of your sisterly affection, to offer against all this ? 
What is your interest ? What friends have you at court ? ’ 

‘None, excepting God and your Grace,’ said Jeanie, still 
keeping her ground resolutely, however. 

‘ Alas ! ’ said the Duke, ‘ I could almost say with old Ormond, 
that there could not be any whose influence was smaller with 
kings and ministers. It is a cruel part of our situation, young 


368 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


woman — I mean of the situation of men in my circumstances j 
— that the public ascribe to them influence which they do not | 
possess; and that individuals are led to expect from them j| 
assistance which we have no means of rendering. But candour 
and plain dealing is in the power of every one, and I must not i 
let you imagine you have resources in my influence which do !; 
not exist, to make your distress the heavier. I have no means 
of averting your sister’s fate. She must die.’ 

‘We must a’ die, sir,’ said Jeanie; ‘it is our common doom 
for our father’s transgression ; but we shouldna hasten ilk : 
other out o’ the Avorld, that’s what your honour kens better 
than, me.’ 

‘ My good young woman,’ said the Duke, mildly, ‘ we are 
all apt to blame the law under which we immediately suffer ; 
but you seem to have been well educated in your line of life, . 
and you must know that it is alike the law of God and man i. 
that the murderer shall surely die.’ 

‘ But, sir, Effie — that is, my poor sister, sir — canna be : 
proved to be a murderer ; and if she be not, and the law take i 
her life notwithstanding, wha is it that is the murderer, then ? ’ 1 

‘I am no lawyer,’ said the Duke; ‘and I own I think the 
statute a very severe one.’ ! 

‘ You are a law-maker, sir, with your leave ; and therefore ; 
ye have power over the law,’ answered Jeanie. . 

‘Notin my individual capacity,’ said the Duke; ‘though, 
as one of a large body, I have a voice in the legislation. But ; 
that cannot serve you; nor have I at present — I care not who :| 
knows it — so much personal influence with the sovereign as J 
would entitle me to ask from him the most insignificant favour. | 
What could tempt you, young woman, to address yourself to 
me?’ 

‘ It was yoursell, sir.’ 

‘ Myself ? ’ he replied. ‘ I am sure you have never seen me 
before.’ 

‘ No, sir ; but a’ the world kens that the Duke of Argyle is ' 
his country’s friend ; and that ye fight for the right, and speak i 
for the right, and that there’s nane like you in our present 
Israel, and so they that think themselves wranged draw to 
refuge under your shadow ; and if ye wunna stir to save the 
blood of an innocent countrywoman of your ain, what should ' 
we expect frae Southrons and strangers ? And maybe I had l 
another reason for troubling your honour.’ 

‘ And what is that ? ’ asked the Duke. ! 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


369 


‘ 1 liae understood from my father that your honour’s house, 
and especially your gudesire and his father, laid down their lives 
on the scaffold in the persecuting time. And my father was 
honoured to 'gie his testimony baith in the cage and in the 
pillory, as is specially mentioned in the books of Peter [Patrick] 
Walker, the packman, that your honour, I daresay, kens, for he 
uses maist partly the westland of Scotland. And, sir, there’s 
ane that takes concern in me that wished me to gang to your 
Grace’s presence, for his gudesire had done your gracious gude- 
sire some good turn, as ye will see frae these papers.’ 

With these words, she delivered to the Duke the little parcel 
Avhich she had received from Butler. He opened it, and in the 
envelope read with some surprise, ‘ Muster-roll of the men serv- 
ing in the troop of that godly gentleman, Captain Salathiel 
Bangtext — Obadiah Muggleton, Sin -Despise Double -knock. 
Stand -fast -in -faith Gipps, Turn -to -the -right Thwack -away. 
What the deuce is this? A list of Praise -God Barebones’ 
Parliament, I think, or of old Noll’s evangelical army; that 
last fellow should understand his wheelings, to judge by his 
name. But what does all this mean, my girl ? ’ 

‘It was the other paper, sir,’ said Jeanie, somewhat abashed 
at the mistake. 

‘ 0, this is my unfortunate grandfather’s hand sure enough : 
“ To all who may have friendship for the house of Argyle, these 
are to certify that Benjamin [Stephen] Butler, of Monk’s regi- 
ment of dragoons, having been, under God, the means of saving 
my life from four English troopers who were about to slay me, 
I, having no other present means of recompense in my power, do 
give him this acknowledgment, hoping that it may be useful 
to him or his during these troublesome times ; and do conjure 
my friends, tenants, kinsmen, and whoever will do aught for 
me, either in the Highlands or Lowlands, to protect and assist 
, the said Benjamin [Stephen] Butler, and his friends or family, 
on their lawful occasions, giving them such countenance, main- 
tenance, and supply as may correspond with the benefit he hath 
bestowed on me. Witness my hand — Lornb.” 

‘This is a strong injunction. This Benjamin [Stephen] 
Butler was your grandfather, I suppose ? You seem too young 
i to have been his daughter.’ 

I ‘ He was nae akjn to me, sir ; he was grandfather to ane — 
i to a neighbour’s son — to a sincere weel-wisher of mine, sir,’ 
dropping her little courtesy as she spoke. 

VII 24 


370 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘0, I understand/ said the Duke — ‘a true-love affair. He ■ 
was the grand sire of one you are engaged to V 

‘One I tms engaged to, sir,’ said Jeanie, sighing; ‘but this 

unhappy business of my poor sister ’ 

‘ What ! ’ said the Duke, hastily ; ‘ he has not deserted you | 
on that account, has he ? ’ . • [ 

‘No, sir; he wad be the last to leave a friend in difficulties,’ ^ 
said Jeanie ; ‘ but I maun think for him as weel as for mysell. T 
He is a clergyman, sir, and it would not beseem him to marry i: 
the like of me, wi’ this disgrace on my kindred.’ ^ 

‘You are a singular young woman,’ said the Duke. ‘You j 
seem to me to think of every one before yourself. And have | 
you really come up from Edinburgh on foot to attempt this ji 
hopeless solicitation for your sister’s life ? ’ | 

‘It was not a’thegither on foot, sir,’ answered Jeanie; ‘for 
I sometimes got a cast in a waggon, and I had a horse from 

Ferrybridge, and then the coach ’ 

‘ Well, never mind all that,’ interrupted the Duke. ‘ What 
reason have you for thinking your sister innocent ? ’ 

‘Because she has not been proved guilty, as will appear 
from looking at these papers.’ 

She put into his hand a note of the evidence, and copies 
of her sister’s declaration. These papers Butler had procured 
after her departure, and Saddletree had them forwarded to 
London, to Mrs. Glass’s gare; so that Jeanie found the docu- 
ments, so necessary for supporting her suit, lying in readiness 
at her arrival. 

‘ Sit down in that chair, my good girl,’ said the Duke, ‘ until 
I glance over the papers.’ 

She obeyed, and watched with the utmost anxiety each j 
change in his countenance as he cast his eye through the 
papers briefly, yet with attention, and making memoranda as i 
he went along. After reading them hastily over, he looked | 
up, and seemed about to speak, yet changed his purpose, as if 
afraid of committing himself by giving too hasty an opinion, 
and read over again several passages which he had marked as 
being most important. All this he did in shorter time than 
can be supposed by men of ordinary talents ; for his mind was 
of that acute and penetrating character which discovers, with 
the glance of intuition, what facts bear on the particular point • 
that chances to be subjected to consideration. At length he !i 
rose, after a few minutes’ deep reflection. ‘Young woman,’ ’i| 
said he, ‘your sister’s case must certainly be termed a hard one.’^l 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


371 


‘God bless you, sir, for that very word ! ’ said Jeanie. 

‘ It seems contrary to the genius of British law,’ continued 
the Duke, ‘ to take that for granted which is not proved, or to 
punish with death for a crime which, for aught the prosecutor 
has been able to show, may not have been committed at all.’ 

‘God bless you, sir ! ’ again said Jeanie, who had risen from 
her seat, and, with clasped hands, eyes glittering through tears, 
and features which trembled with anxiety, drank in every word 
which the Duke uttered. 

‘ But, alas ! my poor girl,’ he continued, ‘ what good will my 
opinion do you, unless I could impress it upon those in whose 
hands your sister’s life is placed by the law ? Besides, I am no 
lawyer ; and I must speak with some of our Scottish gentlemen 
of the gown about the matter.’ 

‘0, but, sir, what seems reasonable to your honour will 
certainly be the same to them,’ answered Jeanie. 

‘ I do not know that,’ replied the Duke ; ‘ ilka man buckles 
his belt his ain gate — you know our old Scotch proverb ? But 
you shall not have placed this reliance on me altogether in 
vain. Leave these papers with me, and you shall hear from 
me to-morrow or next day. Take care to be at home at Mrs. 
Glass’s, and ready to come to me at a moment’s warning. It 
will be unnecessary for you to give Mrs. Glass the trouble to 
attend you ; and, by the by, you will please to be dressed just 
as you are at present.’ 

‘I wad hae putten on a cap, sir,’ said Jeanie, ‘but your 
honour kens it isna the fashion of my country for single women ; 
and I judged that being sae mony hundred miles frae hame, 
your Grace’s heart wad warm to the tartan,’ looking at the 
corner of her plaid. 

‘ You judged quite right,’ said the Duke. ‘ I know the full 
value of the snood; and MacCallummore’s heart will be as 
cold as death can make it when it does not warm to the tartan. 
Now, go away, and don’t be out of the way when I send.’ 

Jeanie replied, ‘There is little fear of that, sir, for I have 
little heart to go to see sights amang this wilderness of black 
houses. But if I might say to your gracious honour, that if 
ye ever condescend to speak to ony ane that is of greater 
degree than yoursell, though maybe it is nae civil in me to 
say sae, just if you would think there can be nae sic odds 
between you and them as between poor Jeanie Deans from St. 
Leonard’s and the Duke of Argyle ; and so dinna be chappit 
back or cast down wi’ the first rough answer.’ 


372 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


'I am not apt,’ said the Duke, laughing, ‘to mind rough 
answers much. Do not you hope too much from what I have 
promised. I will do my best ; but God has the hearts of kings 
in His own hand.’ 

Jeanie courtesied reverently and withdrew, attended by the 
Duke’s gentleman, to her hackney-coach, with a respect which 
her appearance did not demand, but which was perhaps paid 
to the length of the interview with which his master had 
honoured her. 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


Ascend, 

While radiant summer opens all its pride, 

Thy hill, delightful Shene ! Here let us sweep 
The boundless landscape. 

Thomson. 

From her kind and officious, but somewhat gossiping friend, 
Mrs. Glass, Jeanie underwent a very close catechism on their 
road to the Strand, where the Thistle of the good lady flourished 
in full glory, and, with its legend of Nemo me impune, distin- 
guished a shop then well known to all Scottish folk of high and 
low degree. 

‘ And were you sure aye to say “ Your Grace ” to him ? ’ said 
the good old lady ; ‘ for ane should make a distinction between 
MacCallummore and the bits o’ southern bodies that they ca’ 
lords here : there are as mony o’ them, Jeanie, as would gar 
ane think they maun cost but little fash in the making. Some 
of them I wadna trust wi’ six penniesworth of black rappee ; 
some of them I wadna gie mysell the trouble to put up a 
hapnyworth in brown paper for. But I hope you showed your 
breeding to the Duke of Argyle, for what sort of folk would he 
think your friends in London, if you had been lording him, and 
him a duke ? ’ 

‘ He didna seem muckle to mind,’ said Jeanie; ‘he kenn’d 
that I was landward bred.’ 

‘ Weel, weel,’ answered the good lady. ‘ His Grace kens me 
'weel ; so I am the less anxious about it. I never fill his snuff- 
box but he says, “ How d’ye do, good Mrs. Glass ? How are all 
our friends in the North ? ” or it may be — “ Have ye heard from 
the North lately ? ” And you may be sure I make my best 
courtesy, and answer, “ My Lord Duke, I hope your Grace’s noble 
Duchess and your Grace’s young ladies are well ; and I hope 
the snuff continues to give your Grace satisfaction.” And then 
ye will see the people in the shop begin to look about them ; 


374 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


and if there’s a Scotchman, as there may be three or half a 
dozen, afF go the hats, and mony a look after him, and “ There 
goes the Prince of Scotland, God bless him ! ” But ye have not 
told me yet the very words he said t’ye.’ il 

Jeanie had no intention to be quite so communicative. She j 
had, as the reader may have observed, some of the caution and i 
shrewdness, as well as of the simplicity, of her country. She ; 
answered generally, that the Duke had received her very com- , 
passionately, and had promised to interest himself in her sister’s f 
affair, and to let her hear from him in the course of the next | 
day, or the day after. She did not choose to make any mention j 
of his having desired her to be in readiness to attend him, far i| 
less of his hint that she should not bring her landlady. So | 
that honest Mrs. Glass was obliged to remain satisfied with the | 
general intelligence above mentioned, after having done all she j 
could to extract more. j 

It may easily be conceived that, on the next day, Jeanie j 
declined all invitations and inducements, whether of exercise or 
curiosity, to walk abroad, and continued to inhale the close and 
somewhat professional atmosphere of Mrs. Glass’s small parlour. 
The latter flavour it owed to a certain cupboard, containing, 
among other articles, a few canisters of real Havannah, which, 
whether from respect to the manufacture or out of a reverent 
fear of the exciseman, Mrs. Glass did not care to trust in the 
open shop below, and which communicated to the room a scent 
that, however fragrant to the nostrils of the connoisseur, was 
not very agreeable to those of Jeanie. 

‘Dear sirs,’ she said to herself, ‘I wonder how my cousin’s 
silk manty, and her gowd watch, or ony thing in the world, can 
be worth sitting sneezing all her life in this little stifling room, 
and might walk on green braes if she liked.’ 

Mrs. Glass was equally surprised at her cousin’s reluctance j 
to stir abroad and her indifference to the fine sights of London. • 
‘ It would always help to pass away the time,’ she said, ‘ to have 
something to look at, though ane was in distress.’ 

But Jeanie was unpersuadable. 

The day after her interview with the Duke was spent in that 
‘ hope delayed, which maketh the heart sick.’ Minutes glided j 
after minutes ; hours fled after hours ; it became too late to ’ | 
have any reasonable expectation of hearing from the Duke that 
day ; yet the hope which she disowned, she could not altogether . | 
relinquish, and her heart throbbed, and her ears tingled, with - 1 
every casual sound in the shop below. It v^as in vain. The ' ! 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 375 

day wore away in the anxiety of protracted and fruitless ex- 
pectation. 

The next morning commenced in the same manner. But 
before noon a Well-dressed gentleman entered Mrs. Glass’s shop, 
and requested to see a young woman from Scotland. 

‘That will be my cousin^ Jeanie Deans, Mr. Archibald,’ said 
Mrs. Glass, with a courtesy of recognisance. ‘ Have you any 
message for her from his Grace the Duke of Argyle, Mr. Archi- 
bald? I will carry it to her in a moment;’ 

‘ I believe I must give her the trouble of stepping down, 
Mrs. Glass.’ 

‘Jeanie — Jeanie Deans!’ said Mrs. Glass, screaming at the 
bottom of the little staircase, which ascended from the corner 
of the shop to the higher regions. ‘Jeanie — Jeanie Deans, I 
say ! come downstairs instantly ; here is the Duke of Argyle’s 
groom of the chambers desires to see you directly.’ This was 
announced in a voice so loud as to make all who chanced to 
be within hearing aware of the important communication. 

It may easily be supposed that Jeanie did not tarry long in 
adjusting herself to attend the summons, yet her feet almost 
failed her as she came downstairs. 

‘ I must ask the favour of your company a little way,’ said 
Archibald, with civility. 

‘I am quite ready, sir,’ said Jeanie. 

‘ Is my cousin going out, Mr. Archibald ? then I will hae to 
go wi’ her, no doubt. James Rasper, — look to the shop, James. 
Mr. Archibald,’ pushing a jar tow'ards him, ‘ you take his Grace’s 
mixture, I think ? Please to fill your box, for old acquaintance 
sake, while I get on my things.’ 

Mr. Archibald transposed a modest parcel of snufF from the 
jar to his own mull, but said he was obliged to decline the 
pleasure of Mrs. Glass’s company, as his message was particu- 
larly to the young person. 

‘ Particularly to the young person I ’ said Mrs. Glass ; ‘ is not 
that uncommon, Mr. Archibald ? But his Grace is the best 
judge ; and you are a steady person, Mr. Archibald. It is not 
every one that comes from a great man’s house I would trust 
my cousin with. But, Jeanie, you must not go through the 
streets with Mr. Archibald with your tartan what-d’ye-call-it 
there upon your shoulders, as if you had come up with a drove 
of Highland cattle. Wait till I bring down my silk cloak. 
Why, we’ll have the mob after you 1 ’ 

‘ I have a hackney-coach in waiting, madam,’ said Mr. Archi- 


m 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


bald, interrupting the officious old lady, from whom Jeaniei 
might otherwise have found it difficult to escape, ‘ and I believe * 
I must not allow her time for any change of dress.’ | 

So saying, he hurried Jeanie into the coach, while she in-; 
temally praised and wondered at the easy manner in which he j 
shifted off Mrs. Glass’s officious offers and inquiries, without j 
mentioning his master’s orders, or going into any explanation j 
whatever. ' 

On entering the coach, Mr. Archibald seated himself in the ; 
front seat, opposite to our heroine, and they drove on in silence, i 
After they had proceeded nearly half an hour, without a word 
on either side, it occurred to Jeanie that the distance and time ' 
did not correspond with that which had been occupied by her : 
journey on the former occasion to and from the residence of | 
the Duke of Argyle. At length she could not help asking her i 
taciturn companion, ‘ Whilk way they were going ? ’ ! 

‘ My Lord Duke will inform you himself, madam,’ answered ! 
Archibald, with the same solemn courtesy which marked his 
whole demeanour. Almost as he spoke the hackney-coach drew 
up, and the coachman dismounted and opened the door. Archi- 
bald got out and assisted Jeanie to get down. She found her- 
self in a large turnpike road, without the bounds of London, 
upon the other side of which road was drawn up a plain chariot 
and four horses, the panels without arms, and the servants 
without liveries. 

‘You have been punctual, I see, Jeanie,’ said the Duke of 
Argyle, as Archibald opened the carriage door. ‘You must be 
my companion for the rest of the way. Archibald will remain 
here with the hackney-coach till your return.’ 

Ere Jeanie could make answer, she found herself, to her no 
small astonishment, seated by the side of a duke, in a carriage 
which rolled forward at a rapid yet smooth rate, very different 
in both particulars from the lumbering, jolting vehicle which 
she had just left ; and which, lumbering and jolting as it was, 
conveyed to one who had seldom been in a coach before a 
certain feeling of dignity and importance. 

‘Young woman,’ said the Duke, ‘after thinking as at- 
tentively on your sister’s case as is in my power, I continue to 
be impressed with the belief that great injustice may be done 
by the execution of her sentence. So are one or two liberal 
and intelligent lawyers of both countries whom I have spoken 
with. Nay, pray hear me out before you thank me. I have 
already told you my personal conviction is of little consequence, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


377 


unless I could impress the same upon others. Now I have 
done for you what I would certainly not have done to serve 
any purpose of my own : I have asked an audience of a lady 
whose interest with the king is deservedly very high. It has 
been allowed me, and I am desirous that you should see her 
and speak for yourself. You have no occasion to be abashed ; 
tell your story simply as you did to me.’ 

‘I am much obliged to your Grace,’ said Jeanie, remember- 
ing Mrs. Glass’s charge ; ‘ and I am sure, since I have had the 
courage to speak to your Grace in poor Effie’s cause, I have 
less reason to be shamefaced in speaking to a leddy. But, sir, 
I would like to ken "what to ca’ her, whether “ Your Grace,” or 
“Your Honour,” or “Your leddyship,” as we say to lairds and 
leddies in Scotland, and I will take care to mind it ; for I ken 
leddies are full mair particular than gentlemen about their titles 
of honour.’ 

‘ You have no occasion to call her anything but “ Madam.” 
Just say what you think is likely to make the best impression. 
Look at me from time to time : if I put my hand to my cravat 
so (showing her the motion), you will stop ; but I shall only 
do this when you say anything that is not likely to please.’ 

‘ But, sir, your Grace,’ said Jeanie, ‘ if it wasna ower muckle 
trouble, wad it no be better to tell me what I should say, and 
I could get it by heart ? ’ 

‘ No, Jeanie, that would not have the same effect : that would 
be like reading a sermon, you know, which we good Presby- 
terians think has less unction than when spoken without book,’ 
replied the Duke. ‘Just speak as plainly and boldly to this 
lady as you did to me the day before yesterday ; and if you 
can gain her consent. I’ll wad ye a plack, as we say in the 
north, that you get the pardon from the king.’ 

As he spoke he took a pamphlet from his pocket and began 
to read. Jeanie had good sense and tact, which constitute 
betwixt them that which is called natural good-breeding. She 
interpreted the Duke’s manoeuvre as a hint that she was to ask 
no more questions, and she remained silent accordingly. 

The carriage rolled rapidly onwards through fertile meadows, 
ornamented with splendid old oaks, and catching occasionally 
a glance of the majestic mirror of a broad and placid river. 
After passing through a pleasant village, the equipage stopped 
on a commanding eminence, where the beauty of English land- 
scape was displayed in its utmost luxuriance. Here the Duke 
alighted, and desired Jeanie to follow him. They paused for a 


378 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


moment on the brow of a hill, to gaze on the unrivalled land- 
scape which it presented. A huge sea of verdure, with crossing | 
and intersecting promontories of massive and tufted groves, | 
was tenanted by numberless flocks and herds, which seemed to | 
wander unrestrained and unbounded through the rich pastures, ij 
The Thames, here turreted with villas and there garlanded !i 
with forests, moved on slowly and placidly, like the mighty |l 
monarch of the scene, to whom all its other beauties were but ■ 
accessories, and bore on his bosom an hundred barks and skiffs, 
whose white sails and gaily fluttering pennons gave life to the 
whole. 

The Duke of Argyle was, of course, familiar with this scene ; 
but to a man of taste it must be always new. Yet, as he ■ 
paused and looked on this inimitable landscape with the feeling ' 
of delight which it must give to the bosom of every admirer of 
nature, his thoughts naturally reverted to his own more grand, \ 
and scarce less beautiful, domains of Inverary. ‘ This is a fine , 
scene,’ he said to his companion, curious, perhaps, to draw out : 
her sentiments ; ‘ we have nothing like it in Scotland.’ j 

‘ It’s braw rich feeding for the cows, and they have a fine I 
breed o’ cattle here,’ replied Jeanie; ‘but I like just as weel to ■ 
look at the craigs of Arthur’s Seat, and the sea coming in ayont I 
them, as at a’ thae muckle trees.’ 1. 

The Duke smiled at a reply equally professional and national, I 
and made a signal for the carriage to remain where it was. ' 
Then adopting an unfrequented footpath, he conducted Jeanie 
through several complicated mazes to a postern-door in a high i 
brick wall. It was shut ; but as the Duke tapped slightly at |j 
it, a person in waiting within, after reconnoitring through a 
small iron grate contrived for the purpose, unlocked the door ; 
and admitted them. They entered, and it was immediately ^ 
closed and fastened behind them. This was all done quickly, 
the door so instantly closing, and the person who opened it so 
suddenly disappearing, that Jeanie could not even catch a : 
glimpse of his exterior. ; 

They found themselves at the extremity of a deep and | 
narrow alley, carpeted with the most verdant and close-shaven | 
turf, which felt like velvet under their feet, and screened from . 
the sun by the branches of the lofty elms which united over i 
the path, and caused it to resemble, in the solemn obscurity of j 
the light which they admitted, as well as from the range of ; 
columnar stems, and intricate union of their arched branches, i 
one of the narrow side aisles in an ancient Gothic cathedral. i 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


I beseech you ; 

These tears beseech you, and these chaste hands woo you, 

Tliat never yet were heaved but to things holy — 

Things like yourself. You are a God above us ; 

Be as a God, then, full of saving mercy ! 

The Bloody Brother. 

Encouraged as she was by the courteous manners of her noble 
countryman, it was not without a feeling of something like 
terror that Jeanie felt herself in a place apparently so lonely, 
with a man of such high rank. That she should have been 
permitted to wait on the Duke in his own house, and have 
been there received to a private interview, was in itself an 
uncommon and distinguished event in the annals of a life so 
simple as hers ; but to find herself his travelling companion in 
a journey, and then suddenly to be left alone with him in so 
secluded a situation, had something in it of awful mystery. A 
romantic heroine might have suspected and dreaded the power 
of her own charms ; but Jeanie was too wise to let such a silly 
thought intrude on her mind. Still, however, she had a most 
eager desire to know where she now was, and to whom she was 
to be presented. 

She remarked that the Duke’s dress, though still such as 
indicated rank and fashion (for it was not the custom of men of 
quality at that time to dress themselves like their own coach- 
i men or grooms), was nevertheless plainer than that in which 
she had seen him upon a former occasion, and was divested, 

, in particular, of all those badges of external decoration which 
intimated superior consequence. In short, he was attired as 
j! plainly as any gentleman of fashion could appear in the streets 
I of London in a morning ; and this circumstance helped to shake 
jj an opinion which Jeanie began to entertain, that perhaps he 
{! intended she should plead her cause in the presence of royalty 
i, itself. ‘ But, surely,’ said she to herself, ‘ he wad hae putten 


380 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


on his braw star and garter, an he had thought o’ coming before i 
the face of Majesty; and after a’, this is mair like a gentle- j 
man’s policy than a royal palace.’ i 

There was some sense in Jeanie’s reasoning; yet she was; 
not sufficiently mistress either of the circumstances of etiquette, j 
or the particular relations which existed betwixt the govern- \ 
ment and the Duke of Argyle, to form an accurate judgment. | 
The Duke, as we have said, was at this time in open opposition i| 
to the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, and was under- 1 
stood to be out of favour with the royal family, to whom he i 
had rendered such important services. But it was a maxim of * 
Queen Caroline to bear herself towards her political friends i 
Avith such caution as if there was a possibility of their one 
day being her enemies, and towards political opponents with 
the same degree of circumspection, as if they might again 
become friendly to her measures. Since Margaret of Anjou, 
no queen-consort had exercised such w^eight in the political 
affairs of England, and the personal address which she dis- 
played on many occasions had no small share in reclaiming 
from their political heresy many of those determined Tories 
who, after the reign of the Stuarts had been extinguished in 
the person of Queen Anne, were disposed rather to transfer 
their allegiance to her brother, the Chevalier de St. George, than 
to acquiesce in the settlement of the crown on the Hanover 
family. Her husband, whose most shining quality was cour- * 
age in the field of battle, and who endured the office of King ; 
of England without ever being able to acquire English habits, j 
or any familiarity wdth English dispositions, found the utmost 
assistance from the address of his partner ; and while he jeal- 
ously affected to do everything according to his own will and 
pleasure, was in secret prudent enough to take and follow the 
advice of his more adroit consort. He entrusted to her the 
delicate office of determining the various degrees of favour 
necessary to attach the wavering, or to confirm such as were 
already friendly, or to regain those whose goodwill had been : 
lost. ; 

With all the winning address of an elegant, and, according 
to the times, an accomplished woman. Queen Caroline possessed . 
the masculine soul of the other sex. She was proud by nature, j 
and even her policy could not always temper her expressions 
of displeasure, although few were more ready at repairing any 
false step of this kind, when her prudence came up to the aid ^ 
of her passions. She loved the real possession of power rather ' 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


381 


than the show of it, and whatever she did herself that was 
either wise or popular she always desired that the king should 
have the full credit as well as the advantage of the measure, 
conscious that, by adding to his respectability, she was most 
likely to maintain her own. And so desirous was she to comply' 
with all his tastes, that, when threatened with the gout, she 
had repeatedly had recourse to checking the fit by the use of 
the cold bath, thereby endangering her life, that she might be 
I able to attend the king in his walfc. 

It was a very consistent part of Queen Caroline’s character 
to keep up many private correspondences with those to whom 
in public she* seemed unfavourable, or who, for various reasons, 
stood ill Avith the court. By this means she kept in her hands 
the thread of many a political intrigue, and, without pledging 
herself to anything, could often prevent discontent from be- 
coming hatred and opposition from exaggerating itself into 
rebellion. If by any accident her correspondence with such 
persons chanced to be observed or discovered, which she took 
all possible pains to prevent, it was represented . as a mere 
intercourse of society, having no reference to politics ; an 
answer Avith Avhich even the prime minister. Sir Robert 
Walpole, Avas compelled to remain satisfied, when he discovered 
that the Queen had given a private audience to Pulteney, after- 
Avards Earl of Bath, his most formidable and most inveterate 
enemy. 

In thus maintaining occasional intercourse Avith several 
persons who seemed most alienated from the crown, it may 
readily be supposed that Queen Caroline had taken care not 
to break entirely Avith the Duke of Argyle. His high birth, his 
great talents, the estimation in Avhich he was held in his OAvn 
; country, the great services which he had rendered the house of 
I Brunswick in 1715, placed him high in that rank of persons 
Avho were not to be rashly neglected. He had, almost by his 
single and unassisted talents, stopped the irruption of the 
banded force of all the Highland chiefs; there Avas little doubt 
that, with the slightest encouragement, he could put them all 
in motion and renew the civil war ; and it was well known 
I that the most flattering overtures had been transmitted to the 
Duke from the court of St. Germains. The character and 
I temper of Scotland were still little known, and it was considered 
! as a volcano which might, indeed, slumber for a series of years, 

! but was still liable, at a moment the least expected, to break 
I out into a wasteful eruption It was, therefore, of the highest 


382 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


importance to retain some hold over so important a personage | 
as the Duke of Argyle, and Caroline preserved the power of | 
doing so by means of a lady with whom, as wife of George IL, | 
she might have been supposed to be on less intimate terms. j 

It was not the least instance of the Queen’s address that j 
she had contrived that one of her principal attendants, Lady [ 
Suffolk, should unite in her own person the two apparently ! 
inconsistent characters of her husband’s mistress and her own ' 
very obsequious and complaisant confidante. By this dexterous j 
management the Queen secured her power against the danger j 
which might most have threatened it— the thwarting influence 
of an ambitious rival ; and if she submitted to the mortification t 
of being obliged to connive at her husband’s infidelity, she was j 
at least guarded against what she might think its most danger- j 
ous effects, and was besides at liberty now and then to bestow \ 
a few civil insults upon ‘her good Howard,’ whom, however, in i 
general, she treated with great decorum. Lady Suffolk lay ' 
under strong obligations to the Duke of Argyle, for reasons \ 
which may be collected from Horace Walpole’s Reminiscences i 
of that reign, and through her means the Duke had some 
occasional correspondence with Queen Caroline, much inter- j 
mpted, however, since the part he had taken in the debate I 
concerning the Porteous mob, an affair which the Queen, though i 
somewhat unreasonably, was disposed to resent rather as an | 
intended and premeditated insolence to her own person and i 
authority than as a sudden ebullition of popular vengeance. I 
Still, however, the communication remained open betwixt them, j 
though it had been of late disused on both sides. These re- | 
marks will be found necessary to understand the scene which 
is about to be presented to the reader. 

From the narrow alley which they had traversed, the Duke 
turned into one of the same character, but broader and still 
longer. Here, for the first time since they had entered these 
gardens, Jeanie saw persons approaching them. 

They were two ladies, one of whom walked a little behind 
the other, yet not so much as to prevent her from hearing and 
replying to whatever observation was addressed to her by the 
lady who walked foremost, and that without her having the 
trouble to turn her person. As they advanced very slowly, 
Jeanie had time to study their features and appearance. The 
Duke also slackened his pace, as if to give her time to collect 
herself, and repeatedly desired her not to be afraid. The lady 

* See Horace Walpole’s Reminiscences. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


383 


who seemed the principal person had remarkably good features, 
though somewhat injured by the small -pox, that venomous 
scourge which each village Esculapius (thanks to Jenner) can 
now tame as easily as their tutelary deity subdued the python. 
The lady’s eyes were brilliant, her teeth good, and her counte- 
nance formed to express at will either majesty or courtesy. Her 
form, though rather embonpoint, was nevertheless graceful ; and 
the elasticity and firmness of her step gave no room to suspect, 
what was actually the case, that she suffered occasionally from 
a disorder the most unfavourable to pedestrian exercise. Her 
dress was rather rich than gay, and her manner commanding 
and noble. 

Her companion was of lower stature, with light brown hair 
and expressive blue eyes. Her features, without being ab- 
solutely regular, were perhaps more pleasing than if they had 
been critically handsome. A melancholy, or at least a pensive, 
expression, for which her lot gave too much cause, predomi- 
nated when she was silent, but gave way to a pleasing and 
good-humoured smile when she spoke to any one. 

When they were within twelve or fifteen yards of these 
ladies, the Duke made a sign that Jeanie should stand still, 
and stepping forward himself, with the grace which was natural 
to him, made a profound obeisance, which was formally, yet 
in a dignified manner, returned by the personage whom he 
approached. 

‘ I hope,’ she said, with an affable and condescending smile, 
‘ that I see so great a stranger at court as the Duke of Argyle 
has been of late in as good health as his friends there and else- 
where could wish him to enjoy.’ 

The Duke replied, ‘ That he had been perfectly well ’ ; and 
i added, ‘ that the necessity of attending to the public business 
before the House, as well as the time occupied by a late journey 
to Scotland, had rendered him less assiduous in paying his duty 
at the levee and drawing-room than he could have desired.’ 

‘When your Grace can find time for a duty so frivolous,’ 
replied the Queen, ‘you are aware of your title to be well 
received. I hope my readiness to comply with the wish which 
you expressed yesterday to Lady Suffolk is a sufficient proof 
that one of the royal family, at least, has not forgotten ancient 
and important services, in resenting something which resembles 
recent neglect.’ This was said apparently with great good- 
humour, and in a tone which expressed a desire of conciliation. 

The Duke replied, ‘ That he would account himself the most 


384 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


unfortunate of men, if he could be supposed capable of neglect- 1 
ing his duty, in modes and circumstances when it was expected | 
and would have been agreeable. He was deeply gratified by [ 
the honour which her Majesty was now doing to him person- j 
ally ; and he trusted she would soon perceive that it was in a | 
matter essential to his Majesty’s interest that he had the bold- | 
ness to give her this trouble.’ ■ 

‘ You cannot oblige me more, my Lord Duke,’ replied the i 
Queen, ‘ than by giving me the advantage of your lights and ; 
experience on any point of the King’s service. Your Grace is \ 
aware that I can only be the medium through which the 
matter is subjected to his Majesty’s superior wisdom; but if it ‘ 
is a suit which respects your Grace personally, it shall lose no : 
support by being preferred through me.’ ■ 

‘ It is no suit of mine, madam,’ replied the Duke ; ‘ nor ; 
have I any to prefer for myself personally, although I feel in ' 
lull force my obligation to your Majesty. It is a business | 
which concerns his Majesty, as a lover of justice and of mercy, j 
and which, I am convinced, may be highly useful in conciliating | 
the unfortunate irritation which at present subsists among his 
Majesty’s good subjects in Scotland.’ 

There were two parts of this speech disagreeable to Caroline. 
In the first place, it removed the flattering notion she had 
adopted, that Argyle designed to use her personal intercession 
in making his peace with the administration, and recovering 
the employments of which he had been deprived ; and next, 
she was displeased that he should talk of the discontents in 
Scotland as irritations to be conciliated, rather than suppressed. 

Under the influence of these feelings, she answered hastily, 
‘That his Majesty has good subjects in England, my Lord 
Duke, he is bound to thank God and the laws; that he has 
subjects ill Scotland, I think he may thank God and his 
sword.’ 

The Duke, though a courtier, coloured slightly, and the 
Queen, instantly sensible of her error, added, without display- 
ing the least change of countenance, and as if the words had 
been an original branch of the sentence — ‘ And the swords of 
those real Scotchmen who are friends to the house of Brunswick, 
particularly that of his Grace of Argyle.’ 

‘My sword, madam,’ replied the Duke, ‘like that of my 
fathers, has been always at the command of my lawful king 
and of my native country : I trust it is impossible to separate 
their real rights and interests. But the present is a matter of 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


385 


more private concern, and respects the person of an obscure 
individual.’ 

‘What is the affair, my Lord?’ said the Queen. ‘Let us 
find out what we are talking about, lest we should misconstrue 
and misunderstand each other.’ 

‘ The matter, madam,’ answered the Duke of Argyle, ‘ regards 
the fate of an unfortunate young woman in Scotland, now lying 
under sentence of death, for a crime of which I think it highly 
probable that she is innocent. And my humble petition to 
your Majesty is, to obtain your powerful intercession with the 
King for a pardon.’ 

It was now^ the Queen’s turn to colour, and she did so over 
cheek and brow, neck and bosom. She paused a moment, as 
if unwilling to trust her voice with the first expression of her 
displeasure ; and on assuming an air of dignity and an austere 
regard of control, she at length replied, ‘ My Lord Duke, I will 
not ask your motives for addressing to me a request which 
circumstances have rendered such an extraordinary one. Your 
road to the King’s closet, as a peer and a privy-councillor, 
entitled to request an audience, was open, without giving me 
the pain of this discussion. /, at least, have had enough of 
Scotch pardons.’ 

The Duke was prepared for this burst of indignation, and 
he was not shaken by it. He did not attempt a reply while 
the Queen was in the first heat of displeasure, but remained in 
the same firm yet respectful posture which he had assumed 
‘ during the interview. The Queen, trained from her situation 
to self-command, instantly perceived the advantage she might 
i give against herself by yielding to passion ; and added, in the 
same condescending and affable tone in which she had opened 
the interview, ‘You must allow me some of the privileges of 
,1 the sex, my Lord ; and do not judge uncharitably of me, 
i though I am a little moved at the recollection of the gross 
I insult and outrage done in your capital city to the royal 
i authority, at the very time when it was vested in my unworthy 
person. Your Grace cannot be surprised that I should both 
r have felt it at the time and recollected it now.’ 

I ‘ It is certainly a matter not speedily to be forgotten,’ an- 
] swered the Duke. ‘ My own poor thoughts of it have been 
! long before your Majesty, and I must have expressed myself 
very ill if I did not convey my detestation of the murder which 
i was committed under such extraordinary circumstances. I 
I might, indeed, be so unfortunate as to differ with his Majesty’s 

25 


VII 


-386 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


advisers on the degree in which it was either just or politic to j 
punish the innocent instead of the guilty. But I trust your i' 
Majesty will permit me to he silent on a topic in which my 1 
sentiments have not the good fortune to coincide with those of i 
more able men.’ | 

‘ We will not prosecute a topic on which we may probably ! 
differ,’ said the Queen. ‘One word, however, I may say in | 
private — you know our good Lady Suffolk is a little deaf — the 
Duke of Argyle, when disposed to renew his acquaintance with I 
his master and mistress, will hardly find many topics on which if 
we should disagree.’ I 

‘Let me hope,’ said the Duke, bowing profoundly to so s 
flattering an intimation, ‘ that I shall not be so unfortunate as ; 
to have found one on the present occasion.’ j 

‘ I must first impose on your Grace the duty of confession,’ 
said the Queen, ‘ before I grant you absolution. What is your | 
particular interest in this young woman? She does not seem i 
(and she scanned Jeanie, as she said this, with the eye of a i 
connoisseur) much qualified to alarm my friend the Duchess’s j 
jealousy.’ I 

‘ I think your Majesty,’ replied the Duke, smiling in his turn, ' 
‘ will allow my taste may be a pledge for me on that score.’ ' 
‘ Then, though she has not much the air d’une grande dame, 

I suppose she is some thirtieth cousin in the terrible chapter of 
Scottish genealogy ? ’ 

‘ No, madam,’ said the Duke ; ‘ but I wish some of my nearer 
relations had half her worth, honesty, and afiection.’ 

‘ Her name must be Campbell, at least ? ’ said Queen Caroline. 
‘No, madam; her name is not quite so distinguished, if I 
may be permitted to say so,’ answered the Duke. 

‘ Ah ! but she comes from Inverary or Argyleshire ? ’ said the 
Sovereign. 

‘ She has never been farther north in her life than Edinburgh, 
madam.’ 

‘Then my conjectures are all ended,’ said the Queen, ‘and 
your Grace must yourself take the trouble to explain the affair 
of your proUg4e.\ 

With that precision and easy brevity which is only acquired 
by habitually conversing in the higher ranks of society, and 
which is the diametrical opposite of that protracted style of 
disquisition 


Which squires call potter, and which men call prose, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


387 


the Duke explained the singular law under which Effie Deans 
had received sentence of death, and detailed the affectionate 
exertions which Jeanie had made in behalf of a sister for whose 
sake she was willing to sacrifice all but truth and conscience. 

Queen Caroline listened with attention ; she was rather fond, 
it must be remembered, of an argument, and soon found matter 
in what the Duke told her for raising difficulties to his request. 

‘It appears to me, my Lord,’ she replied, ‘that this is a 
severe law. But still it is adopted upon good grounds, I am 
bound to suppose, as the law of the country, and the girl has 
been convicted under it. The very presumptions which the 
law construes into a positive proof of guilt exist in her case ; 
and all that your Grace has said concerning the possibility of her 
innocence may be a very good argument for annulling the Act 
of Parliament, but cannot, while it stands good, be admitted 
in favour of any individual convicted upon the statute.’ 

The Duke saw and avoided the snare ; for he was conscious 
that, by replying to the argument, he must have been inevitably 
led to a discussion, in the course of which the Queen was likely 
to be hardened in her own opinion, until she became obliged, 
out of mere respect to consistency, to let the criminal suffer. 
‘If your Majesty,’ he said, ‘would condescend to hear my poor 
countrywoman herself, perhaps she may find an advocate in 
your own heart more able than I am to combat the doubts 
suggested by your understanding.’ 

The Queen seemed to acquiesce, and the Duke made a signal 
for Jeanie to advance from the spot where she had hitherto 
remained watching countenances which were too long ac- 
customed to suppress all apparent signs of emotion to convey 
to her any interesting intelligence. Her Majesty could not 
help smiling at the awe-struck manner in which the quiet 
demure figure of the little Scotchwoman advanced towards her, 
and yet more at the first sound of her broad northern accent. 
But Jeanie had a voice low and sweetly toned, an admirable 
thing in woman, and eke besought ‘her Leddyship to have 
pity on a poor misguided young creature,’ in tones so affecting 
that, like the notes of some of her native songs, provincial 
vulgarity was lost in pathos. 

‘ Stand up, young woman,’ said the Queen, but in a kind 
tone, ‘ and tell me what sort of a barbarous people your country- 
folk are, where child-murder is become so common as to require 
the restraint of laws like yours ? ’ 

‘If your Leddyship pleases,’ answered Jeanie, ‘there are 


388 


WAVEltLEY NOVELS 


mony places beside Scotland where mothers are unkind to their 
ain flesh and blood.’ 

It must be observed, that the disputes between George the 
Second and Frederick, Prince of Wales, were then at the highest, 
and that the good-natured part of the public laid the blame 
on the Queen. She coloured highly, and darted a glance of a 
most penetrating character first at Jeanie and then at the Duke. 
Both sustained it unmoved — Jeanie from total unconsciousness 
of the offence she had given, and the Duke from his habitual 
composure. But in his heart he thought, ‘My urAucky protegee 
has, with this luckless answer, shot dead, by a kind of chance- 
medley, her only hope of success.’ 

Lady Suffolk good-humouredly and skilfully interposed in 
this awkward crisis. ‘ You should tell this lady,’ she said to 
Jeanie, ‘the particular causes which render this crime common 
in your country.’ 

‘Some thinks it’s the kirk -session;, that is, it’s the — it’s 
the cutty-stool, if your Leddyship pleases,’ said Jeanie, looking- 
down and courtesying. 

‘ The what ? ’ said Lady Suffolk, to whom the phrase was new, 
and who besides was rather deaf. 

‘That’s the stool of repentance, madam, if it please your 
Leddyship,’ answered Jeanie, ‘for light life and conversation, 
and for breaking the seventh command.’ Here she raised her 
eyes to the Duke, saw his hand at his chin, and, totally un- 
conscious of what she had said out of joint, gave double effect 
to the innuendo by stopping short and looking embarrassed. 

As for Lady Suffolk, she retired like a covering party which, 
having interposed betwixt their retreating friends and the 
enemy, have suddenly drawn on themselves a fire unexpectedly 
severe. 

‘ The deuce take the lass,’ thought the Duke of Argyle to 
himself ; ‘ there goes another shot, and she has hit with both 
barrels right and left ! ’ 

Indeed, the Duke had himself his share of the confusion, for, 
having acted as master of ceremonies to this innocent offender, 
he felt much in the circumstances of a country squire who, 
having introduced his spaniel into a well-appointed drawing- 
room, is doomed to witness the disorder and damage which 
arises to china and to dress-gowns in consequence of its un- 
timely frolics. Jeanie’s last chance -hit, however, obliterated 
the ill impression which had arisen from the first; for her 
Majesty had not so lost the feelings of a wife in those of a 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


389 


Queen but that she could enjoy a jest at the expense of ‘her 
good Suffolk.’ She turned towards the Duke of Argyle with a 
smile, which marked that she enjoyed the triumph, and obseiwed, 
‘ The Scotch are a rigidly moral people.’ Then again apply- 
ing herself to Jeanie, she asked how she travelled up from 
Scotland. 

‘ Upon my foot mostly, madam,’ was the reply. 

‘ What, all that immense way upon foot ? How far can you 
walk in a day ? ’ 

‘ Five-and-twenty miles and a bittock.’ 

‘ And a what ? ’ said the Queen, looking towards the Duke 
of Argyle. 

‘ And about five miles more,’ replied the Duke. 

‘ I thought I was a good walker,’ said the Queen, ‘ but this 
shames me sadly.’ 

‘May your Leddyship never hae sae weary a heart that 
ye canna be sensible of the weariness of the limbs 1 ’ said 
Jeanie. 

‘That came better off,’ thought the Duke; ‘it’s the first 
thing she has said to the purpose.’ 

‘And I didna just a’thegither walk the haill way neither, 
for I had whiles the cast of a cart ; and I had the cast of a horse 
from Ferrybridge, and divers other easements,’ said Jeanie, 
cutting short her story, for she observed the Duke made the 
sign he had fixed upon. 

‘With all these accommodations,’ answered the Queen, ‘you 
must have had a very fatiguing journey, and, I fear, to little 
purpose ; since, if the King were to pardon your sister, in all 
probability it would do her little good, for I suppose your people 
of Edinburgh would hang her out of spite.’ 

‘ She will sink herself now outright,’ thought the Duke. 

But he was wrong. The shoals on which Jeanie had touched 
in this delicate conversation lay under ground, and were un- 
known to her ; this rock was above water, and she avoided it. 

‘ She was confident,’ she said, ‘ that baith town and country 
wad rejoice to see his Majesty taking compassion on a poor un- 
friended creature.’ 

‘ His Majesty has not found it so in a late instance,’ said the 
Queen ; ‘ but I suppose my Lord Duke would advise him to 
be guided by the votes of the rabble themselves who should 
be hanged and who spared ? ’ 

‘ No, madam,’ said the Duke ; ‘ but I would advise his 
Majesty to be guided by his own feelings, and those of his 


, 390 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


royal consort ; and then, I am siu’e, punishment will only 
attach itself to guilt, and even then with cautious reluctance.’ 

‘Well, my Lord,’ said her Majesty, ‘all these fine speeches 
do not convince me of the propriety of so soon showing any 
mark of favour to your — I suppose I must not say rebellious ? 
— but, at least, your very disaffected and intractable metropolis. 
Why, the whole nation is in a league to screen the savage and 
abominable murderers of that unhappy man ; otherwise, how is 
it possible but that, of so many perpetrators, and engaged in so 
public an action for such a length of time, one at least must 
have been recognised ? Even this wench, for aught I can tell, 
may be a depository of the secret. Hark you, young woman, 
had you any friends engaged in the Porteous mob ? ’ 

‘No, madam,’ answered Jeanie, happy that the question was 
so framed that she could, with a good conscience, answ^er it in 
the negative. 

‘ But I suppose,’ continued the Queen, ‘ if you were possessed 
of such a secret, you would hold it matter of conscience to keep 
it to yourself ? ’ 

‘ I would pray to be directed and guided what was the line 
of duty, madam,’ answered Jeanie. 

‘Yes, and take that which suited your own inclinations,’ 
replied her Majesty. 

‘If it like you, madam,’ said Jeanie, ‘I would hae gaen to 
the end of the earth to save the life of John Porteous, or any 
other unhappy man in his condition ; but I might lawfully 
doubt how far I am called upon to be the avenger of his blood, 
though it may become the civil magistrate to do so. He is 
dead and gane to his place, and they that have slain him must 
answer for their ain act. But my sister — my puir sister Effie, 
still lives, though her days and hours are numbered ! She ' 
still lives, and a word of the King’s mouth might restore her 
to a broken-hearted auld man, that never, in his daily and 
nightly exercise, forgot to pray that his Majesty might be : 
blessed with a long and a prosperous reign, and that his throne, f 
and the throne of his posterity, might be established in 3 
righteousness. 0, madam, if ever ye kenn’d what it was to 
sorrow for and with a sinning and a suffering creature, whose jj 
mind is sae tossed that she can be neither ca’d fit to live or die, | 
have some compassion on our misery ! Save an honest house 1 
from dishonour, and an unhappy girl, not eighteen years of age, ’j/ 
from an early and dreadful death ! Alas ! it is not when we ; 
sleep soft and wake merrily ourselves, that we think on other 



\^pyTigJit 1893 hy A, & C. Black 


JEANIE S INTERVIEW WITH THE QUEEN, 








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THE HEART OE MIDLOTHIAN 


391 


people’s sulferings. Our hearts are waxed light within us then, 
and we are for righting our ain wrangs and fighting our ain 
battles. But when the hour of trouble comes to the mind or 
to the body — and seldom may it visit your Leddyship — and 
when the hour of death comes, that comes to high and low — 
lang and late may it be yours — 0, my Leddy, then it isna what 
we hae dune for oursells, but what we hae dune for others, that 
we think on maist pleasantly. And the thoughts that ye hae 
intervened to spare the puir thing’s life will be sweeter in that 
hour, come when it may, than if a word of your mouth could 
hang the haill Porteous mob at the tail of ae tow.’ 

Tear followed tear down Jeanie’s cheeks, as, her features 
glowing and quivering with emotion, she pleaded her sister’s 
cause with a pathos which was at once simple and solemn. 

‘ This is eloquence,’ said her Majesty to the Duke of Argyle. 
‘Young woman,’ she continued, addressing herself to Jeanie, 
‘/ cannot gTant a pardon to your sister, but you shall not 
want my warm intercession with his Majesty. Take this 
housewife case,’ she continued, putting a small embroidered 
needle-case into Jeanie’s hands; ‘do not open it now, but at 
your leisure you will find something in it which will remind 
you that you have had an interview with Queen Caroline.’ 

Jeanie, having her suspicions thus confirmed, dropped on 
her knees, and would have expanded herself in gratitude ; but 
the Duke, who was upon thorns lest she should say more or 
less than just enough, touched his chin once more. 

‘ Our business is, I think, ended for the present, my Lord 
Duke,’ said the Queen, ‘and, I trust, to your satisfaction. 
Hereafter I hope to see your Grace more frequently, both at 
Richmond and St. James’s. Come, Lady Suffolk, we must wish 
his Grace good morning.’ 

They exchanged their parting reverences, and the Duke, so 
soon as the ladies had turned their backs, assisted Jeanie to 
rise from the ground, and conducted her back through the 
avenue, which she trode with the feeling of one who walks in 
her sleep. 


CHAPTER XXXVIir 


So soon as I can win the offended King, 

I will be know'n your advocate. 

Cymheline. 

The Duke of Argyle led the way in silence to the small postern 
by which, they had been admitted into Richmond Park, so long 
the favourite residence of Queen Caroline. It was opened by 
the same half-seen janitor, and they found themselves beyond 
the precincts of the royal demesne. Still not a word was spoken 
on either side. The Duke probably wished to allow his rustic 
protegee time to recruit her faculties, dazzled and sunk with 
colloquy sublime ; and betwixt what she had guessed, had heard, 
and had seen, Jeanie Deans’s mind was too much agitated to 
permit her to ask any questions. 

They found the carriage of the Duke in the place where they 
had left it ; and when they resumed their places, soon began to 
advance rapidly on their return to town. 

‘I think, Jeanie,’ said the Duke, breaking silence, ‘you have 
every reason to congratulate yourself on the issue of your inter- 
view with her Majesty.’ 

‘And that leddy was the Queen herselH’ said Jeanie; ‘I 
misdoubted it when I saw that your honour didna put on your 
hat. And yet I can hardly believe it, even when I heard her 
speak it hersell.’ 

‘ It was certainly Queen Caroline,’ replied the Duke. ‘ Have 
you no curiosity to see what is in the little pocket-book ? ’ 

‘Do you think the pardon will be in it, sir?’ said Jeanie, 
with the eager animation of hope. 

‘Why, no,’ replied the Duke; ‘that is unlikely. They 
seldom carry these things about them, unless they were likely 
to be wanted ; and, besides, her Majesty told you it was the 
King, not she, who was to grant it.’ 

‘ That is true too,’ said Jeanie ; ‘ but I am so confused in my 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


393 


mind. But does your honour think there is a certainty of Effie’s 
pardon then ? ’ continued she, still holding in her hand the un- 
opened pocket-book. 

‘Why, kings are kittle cattle to shoe behind, as we say 
in the north,’ replied the Duke; ‘but his wife knoAvs his 
trim, and I haA’^e not the least doubt that the matter is quite 
certain.’ 

‘0, God be praised! God be praised!’ ejaculated Jeanie; 
‘and may the gude leddy never want the heart’s ease she has 
gien me at this moment. And God bless you too, my Lord ! 
Avithout your help I Avad ne’er hae won near her.’ 

The Duke let her dwell upon this subject for a considerable 
time, curious, perhaps, to see how long the feelings of gratitude 
Avould continue to supersede those of curiosity. But so feeble 
was the latter feeling in Jeanie’s mind, that his Grace, with 
whom, perhaps, it Avas for the time a little stronger, Avas obliged 
once more to bring forward the subject of the Queen’s pre- 
sent. It Avas opened accordingly. In the inside of the case 
was the usual assortment of silk and needles, Avith scissors, 
tweezers, etc.; and in the pocket was a bank-bill for fifty 
pounds. 

The Duke had no sooner informed Jeanie of the value of this 
last document, for she was unaccustomed to see notes for such 
sums, than she expressed her regret at the mistake which had 
taken place. ‘ For the hussy itsell,’ she said, ‘was a A^ery valu- 
able thing for a keepsake, with the Queen’s name written in the 
inside a\ ith her ain hand doubtless — Caroline — as plain as could 
be, and a crown draAvn aboon it.’ She therefore tendered the 
bill to the Duke, requesting him to find some mode of return- 
ing it to the royal owner. 

‘No, no, Jeanie,’ said the Duke, ‘there is no mistake in the 
case. Her Majesty knov^s you have been put to great expense, 
and she wishes to make it up to you.’ 

‘ I am sure she is even oAver gude,’ said Jeanie, ‘and it glads 
me muckle that I can pay back Dumbiedikes his siller, Avithout 
distressing my father, honest man.’ 

‘ Dumbiedikes ! What, a freeholder of Midlothian, is he not ? ’ 
said his Grace, Avhose occasional residence in that county made 
him acquainted with most of the heritors, as landed persons are 
termed in Scotland. ‘ He has a house not far from Dalkeith, 
Avears a black Avig and a laced hat ? ’ 

‘Yes, sir,’ answered Jeanie, who had her reasons for being 
brief in her answers upon this topic. 


394 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ Ah ! my old friend Dumbie ! ’ said the Duke ; ‘ I have thrice 
seen him fou, and only onco heard the sound of his voice. Is 
he a cousin of yours, Jeanie?’ 

‘No, sir — my Lord.’ 

‘ Then he must be a well-wisher, I suspect ? ’ 

‘Ye — yes, my Lord, sir,’ answered Jeanie, blushing, and with 
hesitation. 

‘ Aha ! then, if the Laird starts, I suppose my friend Butler 
must be in some danger ? ’ 

‘ 0 no, sir,’ answered Jeanie much more readily, but at the 
same time blushing much more deeply. 

‘ Well, Jeanie,’ said the Duke, ‘you are a girl may be safely 
trusted with your own matters, and I shall inquire no further 
about them. But as to this same pardon, I must see to get it 
passed through the proper forms ; and I have a friend in office 
who will, for auld lang s^uie, do me so much favour. And then, 
Jeanie, as I shall have occasion to send an express down to 
Scotland, who will travel with it safer and more swiftly than 
you can do, I will take care to have it put into the proper 
channel ; meanwhile, you may write to your friends, by post, of 
your good success.’ 

‘And does your honour think,’ said Jeanie, ‘that will do as 
weel as if I were to take my tap in my lap, and slip my ways 
hame again on my ain errand ? ’ 

‘ Much better, certainly,’ said the Duke. ‘ You know the 
roads are not very safe for a single woman to travel.’ 

Jeanie internally acquiesced in this observation. 

‘ And I have a plan for you besides. One of the Duchess’s 
attendants, and one of mine — your acquaintance Archibald — • 
are going down to Inverary in a light calash, with four horses 
I have bought, and there is room enough in the carriage for 
you to go with them as far as Glasgow, where Archibald will 
find means of sending you safely to Edinburgh. And in the 
way, I beg you will teach the woman as much as you can of 
the mystery of cheese-making, for she is to have a charge in the 
dairy, and I dare swear you are as tidy about your milk-pail as 
about your dress.’ 

‘Does your honour like cheese T said Jeanie, with a gleam 
of conscious delight as she asked the question. 

‘Like it!’ said the Duke, whose good -nature anticipated 
what was to follow — ‘cakes and cheese are a dinner for an 
emperor, let alone a Highlandman.’ 

‘ Because,’ said Jeanie, with modest confidence, and great and 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


395 


evident self-gratiilation, ‘ we have been thought so particular 
in making cheese, that some folk think it as gude as the 
real Dunlop ; and if your Honour’s Grace wad but accept a 
stane or twa, blythe, and fain, and proud it wad make us ! 
But maybe ye may like the ewe-milk, that is, the Buckholm- 
side* cheese better; or maybe the gait-milk, as ye come frae 
the Highlands — and I canna pretend just to the same skeel o’ 
them ; but my cousin J ean, that lives at Lockermachus in 
Lammermuir, I could speak to her, and ’ 

‘Quite unnecessary,’ said the Duke; ‘the Dunlop is the 
very cheese of which I am so fond, and I will take it as the 
greatest favour you can do me to send one to Caroline Park. 
But remember, be on honour with it, Jeanie, and make it all 
yourself, for I am a real good judge.’ 

‘I am not feared,’ said Jeanie, confidently, ‘that I may 
please your honour; for I am sure you look as if you could 
hardly find fault wi’ ony body that did their best ; and weel is 
it my part, I trow, to do mine.’ 

This discourse introduced a topic upon which the two 
travellers, though so different in rank and education, found 
each a good deal to say. The Duke, besides his other patriotic 
qualities, was a distinguished agriculturist, and proud of his 
knowledge in that department. He entertained Jeanie with 
his observations on the different breeds of cattle in Scotland, 
and their capacity for the dairy, and received so much inform- 
ation from her practical experience in return, that he pro- 
mised her a couple of Devonshire cows in reward for the lesson. 
In short, his mind was so transported back to his rural employ- 
ments and amusements, that he sighed when his carriage 
stopped opposite to the old hackney-coach, which Archibald 
had kept in attendance at the place where they had left it. 
While the coachman again bridled his lean cattle, which had 
been indulged with a bite of musty hay, the Duke cautioned 
Jeanie not to be too communicative to her landlady concerning 
what had passed. ‘ There is,’ he said, ‘ no use of speaking of 
matters till they are actually settled ; and you may refer the 
good lady to Archibald, if she presses you hard with questions. 
She is his old acquaintance, and he knows how to manage with 
her.’ 

He then took a cordial farewell of Jeanie, and told her to 
be ready in the ensuing week to return to Scotland, saw her 
safely established in her hackney-coach, and rolled off in his 
* See Buckholmside Cheese, Note 30. 


396 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


own carriage, humming a stanza of the ballad which he is said 
to have composed : 

‘ At the sight of Dunbarton once again, 

I’ll cock up my bonnet and march amain, 

With my claymore hanging down to my heel, 

To whang at the bannocks of barley meal. ’ 

Perhaps one ought to be actually a Scotchman to conceive 
how ardently, under all distinctions of rank and situation, they 
feel their mutual connexion with each other as natives of the 
same country. There are, I believe, more associations common i 
to the inhabitants of a rude and wild than of a well-cultivated 
and fertile country : their ancestors have more seldom changed 
their place of residence ; their mutual recollection of remark- 
able objects is more accurate ; the high and the low are more 
interested in each other’s welfare ; the feelings of kindred and 
relationship are more widely extended ; and, in a word, the 
bonds of patriotic affection, always honourable even when a 
little too exclusively strained, have more influence on men’s 
feelings and actions. 

The rumbling hackney-coach, which tumbled over the (then) 
execrable London pavement at a rate very different from that 
which had conveyed the ducal carriage to Richmond, at length 
deposited Jeanie Deans and her attendant at the national sign 
of the Thistle. Mrs. Glass, who had been in long and anxious 
expectation, now rushed, full of eager curiosity and open- 
mouthed interrogation, upon our heroine, who was positively 
unable to sustain the overwhelming cataract of her questions, 
which burst forth with the sublimity of a grand gardyloo : — 

‘ Had she seen the Duke, God bless him ! — the Duchess — the 
young -ladies ? Had she seen the King, God bless him ! — the 
Queen — the Prince of Wales^ — the Princess — or any of the rest 
of the royal family ? Had she got her sister’s pardon ? Was 
it out and out, or was it only a commutation of punishment ? 
How far had she gone — where had she driven to — whom had i 
she seen — what had been said — what had kept her so long ? ’ 

Such were the various questions huddled upon each other 
by a curiosity so eager that it could hardly wait for its own 
gratification. Jeanie would have been more than sufficiently 
embarrassed by this overbearing tide of interrogations, had not ^ 
Archibald, who had probably received from his master a hint 
to that purpose, advanced to her rescue. ‘Mrs. Glass,’ said 
Archibald, ‘his Grace desired me particularly to say, that he 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


397 


would take it as a great favour if you would ask the young 
woman no questions, as he wishes to explain to you more dis- 
tinctly than she can do how her affairs stand, and consult you 
on some matters which she cannot altogether so well explain. 
The Duke will call at the Thistle to-morrow or next day for 
‘ that purpose.’ 

‘ His Grace is very condescending,’ said Mrs. Glass, her zeal 
for inquiry slaked for the present by the dexterous administra- 
I tion of this sugar-plum ; ‘ his Grace is sensible that I am in a 
manner accountable for the conduct of my young kinswoman, 
and no doubt his Grace is the best judge how far he should 
entrust her or me with the management of her affairs.’ 

‘ His Grace is quite sensible of that,’ answered Archibald, 
with national gravity, ‘and will certainly trust what he has to 
say to the most discreet of the two ; and therefore, Mrs. Glass, 
i his Grace relies you will speak nothing to Mrs. Jean Deans, 
i either of her own affairs or her sister’s, until he sees you him- 
i self. He desired me to assure you, in the meanwhile, that 
all was going on as well as your kindness could wish, Mrs. 
Glass.’ 

‘His Grace is very kind — very considerate; certainly, Mr. 

Archibald, his Grace’s commands shall be obeyed, and But 

you have had a far drive, Mr. Archibald, as I guess by the time 
of your absence, and I guess (with an engaging smile) you 
winna be the waur o’ a glass of the right Rosa Solis.’ 

‘ I thank you, Mrs. Glass,’ said the great man’s great man, 
‘ but I am under the necessity of returning to my Lord directly.’ 
I And making his adieus civilly to both cousins, he left the shop 
I of the lady of the Thistle. 

‘I am glad your affairs have prospered so well, Jeanie, my 
love,’ said Mrs. Glass ; ‘ though, indeed, there was little fear of 
them so soon as the Duke of Argyle was so condescending as to 
take them into hand. I will ask you no questions about them, 
because his Grace, who is most considerate and prudent in such 
matters, intends to tell me all that you ken yourself, dear, and 
doubtless a great deal more; so that anything that may lie 
heavily on your mind may be imparted to me in the meantime, 
as you see it is his Grace’s pleasure that I should be made 
acquainted with the whole matter forthwith, and whether you 
or he tells it will make no difference in the world, ye ken. If 
I ken what he is going to say beforehand, I will be much more 
ready to give my advice, and whether you or he tell me about 
it cannot much signify after all, my dear. So you may just 


398 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


say whatever you like, only mind I ask you no questions 
about it.’ 

Jeaniewas a little embarrassed. She thought that the com- 
munication she had to make was perhaps the only means she 
might have in her power to gratify her friendly and hospitable 
kinswoman. But her prudence instantly suggested that her 
secret interview with Queen Caroline, which seemed to pass 
under a certain sort of mystery, was not a proper subject for 
the gossip of a woman like Mrs. Glass, of whose heart she had 
a much better opinion than of her prudence. She, therefore, 
answered in general, ‘ That the Duke had had the extraordinary 
kindness to make very particular inquiries into her sister’s bad 
affair, and that he thought he had found the means of putting 
it a’ straight again, but that he proposed to tell all that he 
thought about the matter to Mrs. Glass herself.’ 

This did not quite satisfy the penetrating mistress of the 
Thistle. Searching as her own small rappee, she, in spite of her 
promise, urged Jeanie with still further questions. ‘Had she 
been a’ that time at Argyle House ? Was the Duke with her 
the whole time ? and had she seen the Duchess ? and had she 
seen the young ladies, and specially Lady Caroline Campbell ? ’ 
To these questions Jeanie gave the general reply, ‘That she 
knew so little of the town that she could not tell exactly where 
she had been ; that she had not seen the Duchess to her know- 
ledge ; that she had seen two ladies, one of whom, she under- 
stood, bore the name of Caroline ; and more,’ she said, ‘ she could 
not tell about the matter.’ 

‘It would be the Duke’s eldest daughter. Lady Caroline 
Campbell, there is no doubt of that,’ said Mrs. Glass; ‘but, 
doubtless, I shall know more particularly through his Grace. 
And so, as the cloth is laid in the little parlour above stairs, 
and it is past three o’clock — for I have been waiting this hour 
for you, and I have had a snack myself — and, as they used to 
say in Scotland in my time — I do not ken if the word be used 
now — there is ill talking between a full body and a fasting ’ 


CHAPTER XXXIX 

Heaven first sent letters to some wretch’s aid — 

Some banish’d lover, or some captive maid. 

Pope. 

By dint of unwonted labour with the pen, Jeanie Deans con- 
trived to indite, and give to the charge of the postman on the 
ensuing day, no less than three letters, an exertion altogether 
strange to her habits; insomuch so that, if milk had been 
plenty, she would rather have made thrice as many Dunlop 
cheeses. The first of them was very brief. It was addressed 
to George Staunton, Esq., at the Eectory, Willingham, by 
Grantham ; the address being part of the information which 
she had extracted from the communicative peasant who rode 
before her to Stamford. It was in these words : — 

‘ Sir, 

‘ To prevent farder mischieves, whereof there hath been 
enough, comes these : Sir, I have my sister’s pardon from the 
Queen’s Majesty, whereof I do not doubt you will be glad, 
having had to say naut of matters whereof you know the pur- 
port. So, sir, I pray for your better welfare in bodie and soul, 
and that it will please the fisycian to visit you in His good time. 
Alwaies, sir, I pray you will never come again to see my sister, 
whereof there has been too much. And so, wishing you no evil, 
but even your best good, that you may be turned from your 
iniquity — for why suld ye die ? — I rest your humble servant to 
command. Ye ken wha.’ 

The next letter was to her father. It was too long altogether 
for insertion, so we only give a few extracts. It commenced — 

‘ Dearest and truly honoured Father, 

‘This comes with my duty to inform you, that it has 
pleased God to redeem that captivitie of my poor sister, in 


400 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


respect the Queen’s blessed Majesty, for whom we are ever 
bound to pray, hath redeemed her soul from the slayer, granting 
the ransom of her, whilk is ane pardon or reprieve. And I 
spoke with the Queen face to face, and yet live ; for she is not 
muckle differing from other grand leddies, saving that she has 
a stately presence, and een like a blue huntin’-haAvk’s, whilk 
gaed throu’ and throu’ me like a Hieland durk. And all this 
good was, alway under the Great Giver, to w^hom all are but 
instruments, wrought forth for us by the Duk of Argile, Avha 
is ane native true-hearted Scotsman, and not pridefu’, like other 
folk Ave ken of ; and likewise skeely enow in bestial, Avhereof he 
has promised to gie me twa Devonshire kye, of Avhich he is 
enamoured, although I do still baud by the real haAvkit Airshire 
breed ; and I have promised him a cheese ; and I Avad avuss ye, 
if GoAvans, the brockit coav, has a quey, that she suld suck her 
fill of milk, as I am given to understand he has none of that 
breed, and is not scornfu’, but Avill take a thing frae a puir body, 
that it may lighten their heart of the loading of debt that they 
awe him. Also his Honour the Duke Avill accept ane of our 
Dunlop cheeses, and it sail be my faut if a better Avas ever 
yearned in LoAvden. (Here follow some observations respect- 
ing the breed of cattle and the produce of the dairy, which 
it is our intention to forward to the Board of Agriculture.) 
Nevertheless, these are but matters of tlie after -harvest, in 
respect of the great good which Providence hath gifted us with, 
and, in especial, poor Effie’s life. And 0, my dear father, 
since it hath pleased God to be merciful to her, let her not Avant 
your free pardon, whilk Avill make her meet to be ane vessel of 
grace, and also a comfort to your ain graie hairs. Dear father, 
will ye let the Laird ken that we have had friends strangely 
raised up to us, and that the talent Avhilk he lent me will be 
thankfully repaid ? I hae some of it to the fore ; and the rest 
of it is not knotted up in ane purse or napkin, but in ane wee 
bit paper, as is the fashion heir, whilk I am assured is gude for 
the siller. And, dear father, through Mr. Butler’s means I hae 
gude friendship Avith the Duke, for there had been kindness 
betAveen their forbears in the auld troublesome time bye-past. 
And Mrs. Glass has been kind like my very mother. She has 
a braw house here, and lives bien and Avarm, wi’ tAva servant 
lasses, and a man and a callant in the shop. And she is to send 
you doun a pound of her hie-dried, and some other tobaka, and 
we maun think of some propine for her, since her kindness hath 
been great. And the Duk is to send the paiMun doun by an 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


401 


express messenger, in respect that I canna travel sae fast ; and 
I am to come doun wi’ twa of his Honour’s servants — that is, 
John Archibald, a decent elderly gentleman, that says he has 
seen you lang syne, when ye were buying beasts in the west 
frae the Laird of Aughtermuggitie — but maybe ye winna mind 
him — ony way, he’s a civil man— and Mrs. Dolly Dutton, that 
is to be dairymaid at Inverara ; and they bring me on as far as 
Glasgo’, whilk will make it nae pinch to win hame, whilk I 
desire of all things. May the Giver of all good things keep ye 
in your outgauns and incomings, whereof devoutly prayeth 
your loving dauter, Jean Deans.’ 

The third letter was to Butler, and its tenor as follows : — 

‘ Master Butler — 

‘ Sir — It will be pleasure to you to ken that all I came for 
is, thanks be to God, weel dune and to the gude end, and that 
your forbear’s letter was right welcome to the Duke of Argile, and 
that he wrote your name down with a keelyvine pen in a leathern 
book, whereby it seems like he will do for you either wi’ a scule 
or a kirk ; he has enow of baith, as I am assured. And I have 
seen the Queen, which gave me a hussy-case out of her own 
hand. She had not her crown and skeptre, but they are laid 
by for her, like the bairns’ best claise, to be worn when she 
needs them. And they are keepit in a tour, whilk is not like 
t]ie tour of Liberton, nor yet Craigmillar, but mair like to the 
castell of Edinburgh, if the buildings were taen and set down 
in the midst of the Nor’ Loch. Also the Queen was very 
bounteous, giving me a paper worth fiftie pounds, as I am assured, 
to pay my expenses here and back agen. Sae, Master Butler, 
as we were aye neebours’ bairns, forbye ony thing else that may 
hae been spoken between us, I trust you winna skrimp yoursell 
for what is needfu’ for your health, since it signifies not muckle 
whilk o’ us has the siller, if the other wants it. And mind this 
is no meant to hand ye to ony thing whilk ye wad rather for- 
get, if ye suld get a charge of a kirk or a scule, as above said. 
Only I hope it will be a scule, and not a kirk, because of these 
difiiculties anent aiths and patronages, whilk might gang ill 
doun wi’ my honest father. Only if ye could compass a harmoni- 
ous call frae the parish of Skreegh-me-dead, as ye anes had 
hope of, I trow it wad please him weel ; since I hae heard him 
say that the root of the matter was mair deeply hafted in that 
wild muirland parish than in the Canongate of Edinburgh. I 

26 


VII 


402 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


wish I had whaten books ye wanted, Mr. Butler, for they hae 
haill houses of them here, and they are obliged to set sum out 
in the street, whilk are said cheap, doubtless to get them out 
of the weather. It is a rnuckle place, and I hae seen sae muckle 
of it that my poor head turns round. And ye ken langsyne I 
am nae great pen-woman, and it is near eleven o’clock o’ the 
night. I am cumming down in good company, and safe ; and 
I had troubles in gaun up, whilk makes me blyther of travel- 
ling wi’ kenn’d folk. My cousin, Mrs. Glass, has a braw house 
here, but a’thing is sae poisoned wi’ snuff that I am like to be 
scomfished whiles. But what signifies these things, in compari- 
son of the great deliverance whilk has been vouchsafed to my 
father’s house, in whilk you, as our auld and dear well-wisher, 
will, I doubt not, rejoice and be exceedingly glad ? And I am, 
dear Mr. Butler, your sincere well-wisher in temporal and eternal 
things, J. D.’ 

After these labours of an unwonted kind, Jeanie retired to 
her bed, yet scarce could sleep a few minutes together, so often 
was she awakened by the heart-stirring consciousness of her 
sister’s safety, and so powerfully urged to deposit her burden 
of joy where she had before laid her doubts and sorrows, in the 
warm and sincere exercises of devotion. 

All the next, ahd all the succeeding day, Mrs. Glass fidgeted 
about her shop in the agony of expectation, like a pea — to use a 
vulgar simile which her profession renders appropriate — upon i 
one of her own tobacco-pipes. With the third morning came j 
the expected coach, with four servants clustered behind on the j 
foot -board, in dark brown and yellow liveries; the Duke in I 
person, with laced coat, gold-headed cane, star and garter — all, 
as the story-book says, very grand. I 

He inquired for his little countrywoman of Mrs. Glass, but ! 
without requesting to see her, probably because he was un- 
willing to give an appearance of personal intercourse betwixt 
them which scandal might have misinterpreted. ‘ The Queen,’ 
he said to Mrs. Glass, ‘ had taken the case of her kinswoman 
into her gracious consideration, and being specially moved by 
the affectionate and resolute character of the elder sister, had ! 
condescended to use her powerful intercession with his Majesty, 
in consequence of which a pardon had been despatched to Scot- 
land to Effie Deans, on condition of her banishing herself forth 
of Scotland for fourteen years. The King’s Advocate had in- 
sisted,’ he said, ‘ upon this qualification of the pardon, having 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


403 


pointed out to his Majesty’s ministers that, within the course 
of only seven years, twenty-one instances of child-murder had 
occurred in Scotland.’ 

‘Weary on him !’ said Mrs. Glass, ‘what for needed he to 
have telled that of his ain country, and to the English folk 
abune a’ ? I used aye to think the Advocate * a douce decent 
man, but it is an ill bii'd — begging your Grace’s pardon for 
speaking of such a^coorse bye-word. And then what is the poor 
lassie to do in a foreign land ? Why, wae’s me, it’s just sending 
I her to play the same pranks ower again, out of sight or guidance 
of her friends.’ 

‘ Pooh ! pooh ! ’ said the Duke, ‘ that need not be antici- 
pated. Why, she may come up to London, or she may 
go over to America, and marry well for all that is come and 
gone.’ 

‘ In troth, and so she may, as your Grace is pleased to inti- 
mate,’ replied Mrs. Glass ; ‘ and now I think upon it, there is 
my old correspondent in Virginia, Ephraim Buckskin, that has 
supplied the Thistle this forty years with tobacco, and it is not 
a little that serves our turn, and he has been writing to me 
this ten years to send him out a wife. The carle is not above 
sixty, and hale and hearty, and well-to-pass in the world, and 
a line from my hand would settle the matter, and Effie Deans’s 
misfortune — forbye that there is no special occasion to speak 
about it — would be thought little of there.’ 

‘ Is she a pretty girl ? ’ said the Duke ; ‘ her sister does not 
get beyond a good comely sonsy lass.’ 

‘Oh, far prettier is Effie than Jeanie,’ said Mrs. Glass, 

‘ though it is long since I saw her mysell ; but I hear of the 
Deanses by all my Lowden friends when they come; your 
Grace kens we Scots are clannish bodies.’ 

‘So much the better for us,’ said the Duke, ‘and the worse 
for those who meddle with us, as your good old-fashioned Scots 
sign says, Mrs. Glass. And now I hope you will approve of the 
measures I have taken for restoring your kinswoman to her 
friends.’ These he detailed at length, and Mrs. Glass gave her 
unqualified approbation, with a smile and a courtesy at every 
sentence. ‘And now, Mrs. Glass, you must tell Jeanie I hope 
she will not forget my cheese when she gets down to Scotland. 
Archibald has my orders to arrange all her expenses.’ 

‘Begging your Grace’s humble pardon,’ said Mrs. Glass, 

* The celebrated Duncan Forbes, soon afterwards Lord President of the College of 
Justice, was at this time Lord Advocate. 


404 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


* it’s a pity to trouble yourself about them ; the Deanses are 
wealthy people in their way, and the lass has money in her 
pocket.’ 

‘That’s all very true,’ said the Duke; ‘but you know, 
where MacCallummore travels he pays all : it is our Highland 
privilege to take from all what we want, and to give to all 
what they want.’ 

‘Your Grace’s better at giving than taking,’ said Mrs. 
Glass, 

‘ To show you the contrary,’ said the Duke, ‘ I will fill my 
box out of this canister without paying you a bawbee ’ ; and 
again desiring to be remembered to Jeanie, with his good 
wishes for her safe journey, he departed, leaving Mrs. Glass 
uplifted in heart and in countenance, the proudest and happiest 
of tobacco and snuff dealers. 

Reflectively, his Grace’s good-humour and affability had a 
favourable effect upon Jeanie’s situation. Her kinswoman, 
though civil and kind to her, had acquired too much of London 
breeding to be perfectly satisfied with her cousin’s rustic and 
national dress, and was, besides, something scandalised at the 
cause of her journey to London. Mrs. Glass might, therefore, 
have been less sedulous in her attentions towards Jeanie, but 
for the interest which the foremost of the Scottish nobles (for 
such, in all men’s estimation, Avas the Duke of Argyle) seemed 
to take in her fate. Now, however, as a kinswoman whose 
virtues and domestic affections had attracted the notice and 
approbation of royalty itself, Jeanie stood to -her relative in a 
light very different and much more favourable, and was not 
only treated with kindness, but with actual observance and 
respect. 

It depended upon herself alone to have made as many visits, 
and seen as many sights, as lay within Mrs. Glass’s power to 
compass. But, excepting that she dined abroad with one or 
two ‘ far-away kinsfolk,’ and that she paid the same respect, on 
Mrs. Glass’s strong urgency, to Mrs. Deputy Dabby, wife of the 
Worshipful Mr. Deputy Dabby, of Farringdon Without, she did 
not avail herself of the opportunity. As Mrs. Dabby w^as the 
second lady of great rank whom Jeanie had seen in London, 
she used sometimes afterwards to draw a parallel betwixt her 
and the Queen, in which she observed, that ‘ Mrs. Dabby was 
dressed twice as grand, and was twice as big, and spoke twice 
as loud, and twice as muckle, as the Queen did, but she hadna 
the same goss-hawk glance that makes the skin creep and the, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


405 


knee bend ; and though she had very kindly gifted her with a 
loaf of sugar and twa punds of tea, yet she hadna a’thegither 
the sw'eet look that the Queen had when she put the needle- 
book into her hand.’ 

Jeanie might have enjoyed the sights and novelties of this 
great city more, had it not been for the qualification added 
to her sister’s pardon, which greatly grieved her affectionate 
disposition. On this subject, however, her mind was somewhat 
relieved by a letter which she received in return of post, in 
answer to that which she had written to her father. With his 
affectionate blessing, it brought his full approbation of the step 
which she had taken, as one inspired by the immediate dictates 
of Heaven, and which she had been thrust upon in order that 
she might become the means of safety to a perishing house- 
hold. 

‘ If ever a deliverance was dear and precious, this,’ said the 
letter, ‘ is a dear and precious deliverance ; and if life saved can 
be made more sweet and savoury, it is when it cometh by the 
hands of those whom we hold in the ties of affection. And do 
not let your heart be disquieted within you, that this victim, 
who is rescued from the horns of the altar, whereuntil she was 
fast bound by the chains of human law, is now to be driven 
beyond the bounds of our land. Scotland is a blessed land to 
those who love the ordinances of Christianity, and it is a fair 
land to look upon, and dear to them who have dwelt in it a’ 
their days ; and weel said that judicious Christian, worthy 
John Livingstone, a sailor in Borrowstounness, as the famous 
Patrick Walker reporteth his words, that howbeit he thought 
Scotland was a Gehennah of wickedness when he was at home, 
yet, when he was abroad, he accounted it ane paradise ; for the 
evils of Scotland he found everywhere, and the good of Scotland 
he found nowhere. But we are to hold in remembrance that 
Scotland, though it be our native land, and the land of our 
fathers, is not like Goshen in Egypt, on whilk the sun of the 
heavens and of the Gospel shineth allenarly, and leaveth the rest 
of the world in utter darkness. Therefore, and also because this 
increase of profit at St. Leonard’s Crags may be a cauld waff of 
wind blawing from the frozen land of earthly self, where never 
plant of grace took root or grew, and because my concerns make 
me take something ower muckle a grip of the gear of the warld 
in mine arms, I receive this dispensation anent Effie as a call to 
depart out of Haran, as righteous Abraham of old, and leave 
my father’s kindred and my mother’s house, and the ashes 


406 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


and mould of them who have gone to sleep before me, and 
which wait to be mingled with these auld crazed bones of mine 
own. And my heart is lightened to do this, when I call to 
mind the decay of active and earnest religion in this land, and 
survey the height and the depth, the length and the breadth, 
of national defections, and how the love of many is waxing j 
lukewarm and cold ; and I am strengthened in this resolution 
to change my domicile likewise, as I hear that store-farms are , 
to be set at an easy mail in Northumberland, where there are ' 
many precious souls that are of our true though suffering ^ 
persuasion. And sic part of the kye or stock as I judge it fit to i 
keep may be driven thither without incommodity — say about 
Wooler, or that gate, keeping aye a shouther to the hills — and 
the rest may be sauld to glide profit and advantage, if we had 
grace weel to use and guide these gifts of the warld. The 
Laird has been a true friend on our unhappy occasions, and I 
have paid him back the siller for Effie’s misfortune, whereof 
Mr. Nichil Novit returned him no balance, as the Laird and I 
did expect he wad hae done. But law licks up a’, as the 
common folk say. I have had the siller to borrow out of sax 
purses. Mr. Saddletree advised to give the Laird of Lounsbeck 
a charge on his band for a thousand merks. But I hae nae 
broo’ of charges, since that awfu’ morning that a tout of a horn 
at the Cross of Edinburgh blew half the faithfu’ ministers of 
Scotland out of their pulpits. However, I sail raise an adjudi- 
cation, whilk Mr. Saddletree says comes instead of the auld 
apprisings, and will not lose weel-won gear with the like of him 
if it may be helped. As for the Queen, and the credit that she 
hath done to a poor man’s daughter, and the mercy and the 
grace ye found with her, I can only pray for her weel -being 
here and hereafter, for the establishment of her house now and 
for ever upon the throne of these kingdoms. I doubt not but 
what you told her Majesty that I was the same David Deans 
of whom there was a sport at the Revolution, when I noited 
thegither the heads of twa false prophets, these ungracious 
Graces the prelates, as they stood on the Hie Street, after being 
expelled from the Convention Parliament.* The Duke of 
Argyle is a noble and true-hearted nobleman, who pleads the 
cause of the poor, and those who have none to help them; 
verily his reward shall not be lacking unto him. I have been 
writing of many things, but not of that whilk lies nearest mine 
heart. I have seen the misguided thing ; she will be at freedom 

* See Expulsion of the Bishops from the Scottish Convention. Not# 81. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


407 


the mom, on enacted caution that she shall leave Scotland in 
four weeks. Her mind is in an evil frame — casting her eye 
backward on Egypt, I doubt, as if the bitter waters of the 
wilderness were harder to endure than the brick furnaces, bv 
the side of which there w'ere savoury flesh-pots. I need not bid 
you make haste down, for you are, excepting always my Great 
Master, my only comfort in these straits. I charge you to 
withdraw your feet from the delusion of that Vanity Fair in 
whilk ye are a sojourner, and not to go to their worship, w^hilk 
is an ill-mumbled mass, as it was weel termed by James the 
Sext, though he afterwards, with his unhappy son, strove to 
bring it ower back and belly into his native kingdom, where- 
through their race have been cut off as foam upon the water, 
and shall be as wanderers among the nations ; see the prophecies 
of Hosea, ninth and seventeenth, and the same, tenth and 
seventh. But us and our house, let us say with the same 
prophet : “ Let us return to the Lord ; for he hath torn and 
he will heal us, he hath smitten and he will bind us up.” ’ 

He proceeded to say, that he approved of her proposed mode 
of returning by Glasgow, and entered into sundry minute 
particulars not necessary to be quoted. A single line in the 
letter, but not the least frequently read by the party to 
w^hom it was addressed, intimated that ‘Reuben Butler had 
been as a son to him in his sorrows.^ As David Deans 
scarce ever mentioned Butler before without some gibe, more 
or less direct, either at his carnal gifts and learning or at his 
grandfather’s heresy, Jeanie drew a good omen from no such 
qualifying clause being added to this sentence respecting him. 

A lover’s hope resembles the bean in the nursery tale : let 
it once take root, and it will grow so rapidly that in the course 
of a few hours the giant Imagination builds a castle on the 
top, and by and by comes Disappointment with the ‘curtal 
axe,’ and hews down both the plant and the superstructure. 
Jeanie’s fancy, though not the most powerful of her faculties, 
was lively enough to transport her to a wild farm in North- 
umberland, well stocked with milk -cows, yeald beasts, and 
sheep ; a meeting-house hard by, frequented by serious Presby- 
tenans, who had united in a harmonious call to Reuben Butler 
to be their spiritual guide; Eflie restored, not to gaiety, but 
to cheerfulness at least; their father, with his grey hairs 
smoothed down, and spectacles on his nose ; herself, with the 
maiden snood exchanged for a matron’s curch — all arranged in 
a pew in the said meeting-house, listening to words of devotion. 


408 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


rendered sweeter and more powerful by the affectionate ties 
which combined them with the preacher. She cherished such 
visions from day to day, until her residence in London began 
to become insupportable and tedious to her ; and it was with 
no ordinary satisfaction that she received a summons from 
Argyle House, requiring her in two days to be prepared to join 
their northward party. 


CHAPTER XL 


One was a female, who had grievous ill 
Wrought in revenge, and she enjoy’d it still ; 

Sullen she was, and threatening ; in her eye 
Glared the stern triumph that she dared to die. 

Crabbe. 

The summons of preparation arrived after Jeanie Deans had 
resided in the metropolis about three weeks. 

On the morning appointed she took a grateful farewell of 
Mrs. Glass, as that good woman’s attention to her particularly 
required, placed herself and her movable goods, which purchases 
and presents had gi’eatly increased, in a hackney-coach, and 
joined her travelling companions in the housekeeper’s apart- 
ment at Argyle House. While the carriage was getting ready, 
she was informed that the Duke wished to speak with her ; and 
being ushered into a splendid saloon, she was surprised to find 
that he wished to present her to his lady and daughters. 

‘ I bring you my little countrywoman. Duchess,’ these were 
the words of the introduction. ‘ With an army of young fellows 
as gallant and steady as she is, and a good cause, I would not 
fear two to one.’ 

‘Ah, papa!’ said a lively young lady, about twelve years 
old, ‘remember you were full one to two at SherifFmuir, and 
yet (singing the well-known ballad) — 

Some say that we wan, and some say that they wan, 

And some say that nane wan at a’, man ; 

But of ae thing I’m sure, that on Sheriffmuir 
A battle there was that I saw, man.’ 

‘What, little Mary turned Tory on my hands? This will 
be fine news for our countrywoman to carry down to Scot- 
land I ’ 

‘We may all turn Tories for the thanks we have got for 
remaining Whigs,’ said the second young lady. 


410 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ Well, hold your peace, you discontented monkeys, and go 
dress your babies ; and as for the Bob of Dumblane, 

If it wasna weel bobbit, weel bobbit, weel bobbit, 

If it wasna weel bobbit, well bobb it again.’ 

‘Papa’s wit is running low,’ said Lady Mary, ‘the poor 
gentleman is repeating himself ; he sang that on the field of 
battle, when he was told the Highlanders had cut his left wing 
to pieces with their claymores.’ 

A pull by the hair was the repartee to this sally. 

‘ Ah ! brave Highlanders and bright claymores,’ said the 
Duke, ‘ well do I wish them, “ for a’ the ill they’ve done me yet,” 
as the song goes. But come, madcaps, say a civil word to your 
countrywoman. I wish ye had half her canny hamely sense ; 
I think you may be as leal and true-hearted.’ 

The Duchess advanced, and, in few words, in w^hich there 
was as much kindness as civility, assured Jeanie of the respect 
which she had for a character so affectionate, and yet so firm, 
and added, ‘ When you get home, you will perhaps hear from 
me.’ 

‘And from me.’ ‘And from me.’ ‘And from me, Jeanie,’ 
added the young ladies one after the other, ‘for you are a 
credit to the land we love so well.’ 

Jeanie, overpowered with these unexpected compliments, 
and not aware that the Duke’s investigation had made him 
acquainted with her behaviour on her sister’s trial, could only 
answer by blushing, and courtesying round and round, and utter- 
ing at intervals, ‘ Mony thanks ! mony thanks ! ’ 

‘Jeanie,’ said the Duke, ‘you must have dock an^ dorroch, 
or you will be unable to travel.’ 

There was a salver with cake and wine on the table. He 
took up a glass, drank ‘ to all true hearts that lo’ed Scotland,’ 
and offered a glass to his guest. 

Jeanie, however, declined it, saying, ‘that she had never 
tasted wine in her life.’ 

‘How comes that, Jeanie ?’ said the Duke; ‘wine maketh 
glad the heart, you know.’ 

‘ Ay, sir, but my father is like Jonadab the son of Rechab, 
who charged his children that they should drink no wine.’ 

‘I thought your father would have had more sense,’ said 
the Duke, ‘unless, indeed, he prefers brandy. But, however, 
Jeanie, if you will not drink, you must eat, to save the char- 
acter of my house.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


411 


He thrust upon her a large piece of cake, nor would he 
permit her to break off a fragment and lay the rest on the 
salver. ‘Put it in your pouch, Jeanie,’ said he; ‘you will be 
glad of it before you see St. Giles’s steeple. I wish to Heaven 
I were to see it as soon as you ! and so my best service to all 
my friends at and about Auld Reekie, and a blythe journey to 
you.’ 

And, mixing the frankness of a soldier with his natural 
affability, he shook hands with his prot^gee^ and committed 
her to the charge of Archibald, satisfied that he had provided 
sufficiently for her being attended to by his domestics, from 
the unusual attention with which he had himself treated her. 

Accordingly, in the course of her journey, she found both 
her companions disposed to pay her every possible civility, so 
that her return, in point of comfort and safety, formed a strong 
contrast to her journey to London. 

Her heart also was disburdened of the weight of grief, 
shame, apprehension, and fear which had loaded her before 
her intervdew with the Queen at Richmond. But the human 
mind is so strangely capricious that, when freed from the 
pressure of real misery, it becomes open and sensitive to the 
apprehension of ideal calamities. She was now much disturbed 
in mind that she had heard nothing from Reuben Butler, to 
w^hom the operation of writing was so much more familiar than 
it was to herself. 

‘ It would have cost him sae little fash,’ she said to herself ; 
‘ for I hae seen his pen gang as fast ower the paper as ever it 
did ower the water when it was in the grey goose’s wing. 
Wae’s me ! maybe he may be badly ; but then my father wad 
likely hae said something about it. Or maybe he may hae 
taen the rue, and kensna how to let me wot of his change of 
mind. He needna be at muckle fash about it,’ — she went on, 
drawing herself up, though the tear of honest pride and injured 
affection gathered in her eye, as she entertained the suspicion ; 
‘Jeanie Deans is no the lass to pu’ him by the sleeve, or put 
him in mind of what he wishes to forget. I shall wish him 
weel and happy a’ the same ; and if he has the luck to get a 
kirk in our country, I sail gang and hear him just the very 
same, to show that I bear nae malice.’ And as she imagined 
the scene, the tear stole over her eye. 

In these melancholy reveries Jeanie had full time to in- 
dulge herself ; for her travelling companions, servants in a dis- 
tinguished and fashionable family, had, of course, many topics 


412 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


of conversation in which it was absolutely impossible she could 
have either pleasure or portion. She had, therefore, abundant 
leisure for reflection, and even for self-tormenting, during the 
several days which, indulging the young horses the Duke was 
sending down to the North with sufficient ease and short stages, 
they occupied in reaching the neighbourhood of Carlisle. 

In approaching the vicinity of that ancient city, they dis- 
cerned a considerable crowd upon an eminence at a little 
distance from the highroad, and learned from some passengers 
■who were gathering towards that busy scene from the south- 
ward, that the cause of the concourse was the laudable public 
desire ‘ to see a domned Scotch witch and thief get half of her 
due upo’ Haribee Broo’ yonder : for she was only to be hanged ; 
she should hae been boomed aloive, an’ cheap on’t.’ 

‘ Dear Mr. Archibald,’ said the dame of the dairy elect, ‘ I 
never seed a woman hanged in a’ my life, and only four men, 
as made a goodly spectacle.’ 

Mr. Archibald, however, was a Scotchman, and promised 
himself no exuberant pleasure in seeing his countrywoman 
undergo ‘ the terrible behests of law.’ Moreover, he was a man 
of sense and delicacy in his way, and the late circumstances of 
Jeanie’s family, with the cause of her expedition to London, 
were not unknown to him ; so that he answered drily, it was 
impossible to stop, as he must be early at Carlisle on some 
business of the Duke’s, and he accordingly bid the postilions 
get on. 

The road at that time passed at about a quarter of a mile’s 
distance from the eminence called Haribee or Harabee Brow, 
which, though it is very moderate in size and height, is never- 
theless seen from a great distance around, owing to the flatness 
of the country through which the Eden flows. Here many an 
outlaw and border-rider of both kingdoms had wavered in the 
wind during the wars, and scarce less hostile truces, between 
the two countries. Upon Harabee, in latter days, other execu- 
tions had taken place with as little ceremony as compassion ; 
for these frontier provinces remained long unsettled, and, even 
at the time of which we write, were ruder than those in the 
centre of England. 

The postilions drove on, wheeling, as the Penrith road led 
them, round the verge of the rising ground. Yet still the eyes 
of Mrs. Dolly Dutton, which, with the head and substantial 
person to which they belonged, were all turned towards the 
scene of action, could discern plainly the outline of the gallows- 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


413 


tree, relieved against the clear sky, the dark shade formed by 
the persons of the executioner and the criminal upon the light 
rounds of the tall aerial ladder, until one of the objects, launched 
into the air, gave unequivocal signs of mortal agony, though 
appearing in the distance not larger than a spider dependent at 
the extremity of his invisible thread, while the remaining form 
descended from its elevated situation, and regained with all 
speed an undistinguished place among the crowd. This termina- 
tion of the tragic scene drew forth of course a squall from Mrs. 
Dutton, and J eanie, with instinctive curiosity, turned her head 
in the same direction. 

The sight of a female culprit in the act of undergoing the 
fatal punishment from which her beloved sister had been so 
recently rescued, was too much, not perhaps for her nerves, but 
for her mind and feelings. She turned her head to the other 
side of the carriage, with a sensation of sickness, of loathing, 
and of fainting. Her female companion overwhelmed her with 
questions, with proffers of assistance, with requests that the 
carriage might be stopped, that a doctor might be fetched, that 
drops might be gotten, that burnt feathers and assafoetida, fair 
water, and hartshorn might be procured, all at once, and with- 
out one instant’s delay. Archibald, more calm and considerate, 
only desired the carriage to push forward ; and it was not till 
they had got beyond sight of the fatal spectacle that, seeing 
the deadly paleness of Jeanie’s countenance, he stopped the 
carnage, and jumping out himself, went in search of the most 
obvious and most easily procured of Mrs. Dutton’s pharma- 
copoeia — a draught, namely, of fair water. 

While Archibald was absent on this good-natured piece of 
service, damning the ditches which produced nothing but mud, 
and thinking upon the thousand bubbling springlets of his own 
mountains, the attendants on the execution began to pass the 
stationary vehicle in their way back to Carlisle. 

From their half -heard and half- understood words, Jeanie, 
whose attention was involuntarily riveted by them, as that of 
children is by ghost stories, though they know the pain with 
which they will afterwards remember them — Jeanie, I say, could 
discern that the present victim of the law had died * game,’ as it 
is termed by those unfortunates ; that is, sullen, reckless, and 
impenitent, neither fearing God nor regarding man. 

‘ A sture woife, and a dour,’ said one Cumbrian peasant, as 
he clattered by in his wooden brogues, with a noise like the 
trampling of a dray-horse. 


414 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ She has gone to ho master, with ho’s name in her mouth,’ 
said another. ‘ Shame the country should be harried wi’ Scotch 
witches and Scotch bitches this gate ; but I say hang and 
drown.’ 

‘Ay, ay. Gaffer Tramp, take awa yealdon, take awa low; 
hang the witch, and there will be less scathe amang us ; mine 
owsen hae been reckan this towmont.’ 

‘ And mine bairns hae been crining too, mon,’ replied his 
neighbour. 

‘ Silence wi’ your fule tongues, ye churls,’ said an old woman 
who hobbled past them as they stood talking near the carriage ; 
‘ this was nae witch, but a bluidy-fingered thief and murderess.’ 

‘ Ay ? was it e’en sae. Dame Hinchup ? ’ said one in a civiJ 
tone, and stepping out of his place to let the old woman pass 
along the footpath. ‘Nay, you know best,* sure; but at ony 
rate we hae but tint a Scot of her, and that’s a thing better 
lost than found.’ 

The old woman passed on without making any answer. 

‘ Ay, ay, neighbour,’ said Gaffer Tramp, ‘ seest thou how one 
witch will speak for t’other — Scots or English, the same to 
them.’ 

His companion shook his head, and replied in the same 
subdued tone, ‘ Ay, ay, when a Sark-foot wife gets on her broom- 
stick, the dames of Allonby are ready to mount, just as sure as 
the bye-word gangs o’ the hills — 

If Skiddaw hath a cap, 

Criffel wots full weel of that. ’ 

‘ But,’ continued Gaffer Tramp, ‘ thinkest thou the daughter 
o’ yon hangit body isna as rank a witch as ho ? ’ 

‘I kenna clearly,’ returned the fellow, ‘but the folk arc 
speaking o’ swimming her i’ the Eden.’ And they passed on 
their several roads, after wishing each other good morning. 

Just as the clowns left the place, and as Mr. Archibald re- 
turned with some fair water, a crowd of boys and girls, and 
some of the lov/er rabble of more mature age, came up from 
the place of execution, grouping themselves with many a yell 
of delight around a tall female fantastically dressed, who was 
dancing, leaping, and bounding in the midst of them. A horrible 
recollection pressed on Jeanie as she looked on this unfortunate 
creature ; and the reminiscence was mutual, for, by a sudden 
exertion of great strength and agility, Madge Wildfire broke 
out of the noisy circle of tormentors who surrounded her, and 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


415 


clinging fast to the door of the calash, uttered, in a sound be- 
twixt laughter and screaming, ‘ Eh, d’ye ken, Jeanie Deans, 
they hae hangit our mother?’ Then suddenly changing her 
tone to that of the most piteous entreaty, she added, ‘ 0 gar 
them let me gang to cut her down ! — let me but cut her down ! 
She is my mother, if she was waur than the deil, and she’ll be 
nae mair kenspeckle than half- hangit Maggie Dickson,* that 
cried saut mony a day after she had been hangit ; her voice 
was roupit and hoarse, and her neck was a \vee agee, or ye wad 
hae kenn’d nae odds on her frae ony other saut-wife.’ 

Mr. Archibald, embarrassed by the madwoman’s clinging to 
the carriage, and detaining around them her noisy and mischiev- 
; ous attendants, was all this while looking out for a constable 
or beadle, to whom he might commit the unfortunate creature. 
But seeing no such person of authority, he endeavoured to 
loosen her hold from the carriage, that they might escape from 
her by driving on. This, however, could hardly be achieved 
I without some degree of violence ; Madge held fast, and renewed 
her frantic entreati^ to be permitted to cut down her mother. 

I * It was but a tenpenny tow lost,’ she said, ‘ and what was that 
to a woman’s life?’ There came up, however, a parcel of 
savage -looking fellows, butchers and graziers chiefly, among 
whose cattle there had been of late a very general and fatal 
distemper, which their wisdom imputed to witchcraft. They 
j laid violent hands on Madge, and tore her from the carriage, 
exclaiming — ‘ What, doest stop folk o’ king’s highway ? Hast 
i no done mischief enow already, wi’ thy murders and thy 
witcherings ? ’ 

‘Oh, Jeanie Deans — Jeanie Deans!’ exclaimed the poor 
maniac, ‘save my mother, and I will take ye to the Inter- 
preter’s house again ; and I will teach ye a’ my bonny sangs ; 

and I will tell ye what came o’ the ’ The rest of her 

entreaties were drowned in the shouts of the rabble. 

‘ Save her, for God’s sake 1 — save her from those people ! ’ ex- 
claimed Jeanie to Archibald. 

‘She is mad, but quite innocent — she is mad, gentlemen,’ 
said Archibald ; ‘ do not use her ill, take her before the mayor.’ 

‘ Ay, ay, we’se hae care enow on her,’ answered one of the 
fellows ; ‘ gang thou thy gate, man, and mind thine own matters.’ 

‘He’s a Scot by his tongue,’ said another; ‘and an he will 
come out o’ his whirligig there, I’se gie him his tartan plaid fu’ 
o’ broken banes.’ 

* See Note 32. 


416 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


It was clear nothing could be done to rescue Madge ; and 
Archibald, who was a man of humanity, could only bid the 
postilions hurry on to Carlisle, that he might obtain some 
assistance to the unfortunate woman. As they drove off, they 
heard the hoarse roar with which the mob preface acts of riot 
or cruelty, yet even above that deep and dire note they could 
discern the screams of the unfortunate victim. They were soon 
out of hearing of the cries, but had no sooner entered the streets 
of Carlisle than Archibald, at Jeanie’s earnest and urgent en- 
treaty, went to a magistrate, to state the cruelty which was 
likely to be exercised on this unhappy creature. 

In about an hour and a half he returned, and reported to 
Jeanie that the magistrate had very readily gone in person, 
with some assistants, to the rescue of the unfortunate woman, 
and that he had himself accompanied him; that when they 
came to the muddy pool in which the mob were ducking her, 
according to their favourite mode of punishment, the magistrate 
succeeded in rescuing her from their hands, but in a state of 
insensibility, owing to the cruel treatment which she had re- 
ceived. He added, that he had seen her carried to the work- 
house, and understood that she had been brought to herself, 
and was expected to do well. 

This last averment was a slight alteration in point of fact, 
for Madge Wildfire was not expected to survive the treatment 
she had received; but Jeanie seemed so much agitated that 
Mr. Archibald did not think it prudent to tell her the worst at 
once. Indeed, she appeared so fluttered and disordered by this 
alarming accident that, although it had been their intention to 
proceed to Longtown that evening, her companions judged it 
most advisable to pass the night at Carlisle. 

This was particularly agreeable to Jeanie, who resolved, if 
possible, to procure an interview with Madge Wildfire. Con- 
necting some of her wild flights with the narrative of George 
Staunton, she was unwilling to omit the opportunity of extract- 
ing from her, if possible, some information concerning the fate 
of that unfortunate infant which had cost her sister so dear. 
Her acquaintance with the disordered state of poor Madge’s 
mind did not permit her to cherish much hope that she could 
acquire from her any useful intelligence; but then, since 
Madge’s mother had suffered her deserts, and was silent for ever, 
it was her only chance of obtaining any kind of information, 
and she was loth to lose the opportunity. 

She coloured her wish to Mr. Archibald by saying that she 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


417 


had seen Madge formerly, and wished to know, as a matter of 
humanity, how she was attended to under her -present mis- 
fortunes. That complaisant person immediately went to the 
workhouse, or hospital, in w^hich he had seen the sufferer lodged, 
and brought back for reply, that the medical attendants posi- 
tively forbade her seeing any one. When the application for 
admittance was repeated next day, Mr. Archibald was informed 
that she had been very quiet and composed, insomuch that the 
clergyman, who acted as chaplain to the establishment, thought 
it expedient to read prayers beside her bed, but that her wander- 
ing fit of mind had returned soon after his departure ; however, 
her countrywoman might see her if she chose it. She was not 
expected to live above an hour or two. 

Jeanie had no sooner received this information than she 
hastened to the hospital, her companions attending her. They 
found the dying person in a large ward, where there were ten 
beds, of which the patient’s was the only one occupied. 

Madge was singing when they entered — singing her own wild 
snatches of songs and obsolete airs, wkh a voice no longer over- 
strained by false spirits, but softened, saddened, and subdued 
by bodily exhaustion. She was still insane, but was no longer 
able to express her wandering ideas in the wild notes of her 
former state of exalted imagination. There was death in the 
plaintive tones of her voice, which yet, in this moderated and 
melancholy mood, had something of the lulling sound with 
which a mother sings her infant asleep. As Jeanie entered, she 
heard first the air, and then a part of the chorus and words, of 
what had been, perhaps, the song of a jolly harvest-home ; 

‘ Our work is over — over now, 

The goodman wipes his weary brow, 

The last long wain Wends slow away, 

And we are free to sport and play. 

The night comes on when sets the sun. 

And labour ends when day is done. 

When Autumn’s gone and Winter’s come. 

We hold our jovial harvest-home.’ 

Jeanie advanced to the bedside when the strain was finished, 
and addressed Madge by her name. But it produced no symp- 
toms of recollection. On the contrary, the patient, like one 
provoked by interruption, changed her posture, and called out, 
with an impatient tone, ‘Nurse— nurse, turn my face to the 
wa’, that I may never answer to that name ony mair, and never 
see mair of a wicked w'orld.’ 


VII 


27 


418 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


The attendant on the hospital arranged her in her bed as 
she desired, with her face to the wall and her back to the light. 
So soon as she was quiet in this new position, she began again 
to sing in the same low and modulated strains, as if she was 
recovering the state of abstraction which the interruption of 
her visitants had disturbed. The strain, however, was different, 
and rather resembled the music of the Methodist hymns, though 
the measure of the song was similar to that of the former : 

‘ When the fight of gi’ace is fought, 

When the marriage vest is wrought, 

When Faith hath chased cold Doubt away, 

And Hope but sickens at delay, 

When Charity, imprisoned here. 

Longs for a more expanded sphere. 

Doff thy robes of sin and clay, 

Christian, rise, and come away.’ 

The strain was solemn and afifecting, sustained as it was by 
the pathetic warble of a voice which had naturally been a fine 
one, and which weakness, if it diminished its power, had im- 
proved in softness. Archibald,' though a follower of the court, 
and a ‘pococurante by profession, was confused, if not affected ; 
the dairymaid blubbered ; and J eanie felt the tears rise spon- 
taneously to her eyes. Even the nurse, accustomed to all 
modes in which the spirit can pass, seemed considerably moved. 

The patient was evidently growing weaker, as was intimated 
by an apparent difficulty of breathing which seized her from 
time to time, and by the utterance of low listless moans, inti- 
mating that nature was succumbing in the last conflict. But 
the spirit of melody, which must originally have so strongly 
possessed this unfortunate young woman, seemed, at every 
interval of ease, to triumph over her pain and weakness. And it 
was remarkable that there could always be traced in her songs 
something appropriate, though perhaps only obliquely or col- 
laterally so, to her present situation. Her next seemed to be 
the fragment of some old ballad : 

‘ Cauld is my bed. Lord Archibald, 

And sad my sleep of sorrow ; 

But thine sail be as sad and cauld, 

]\Iy fause true-love, to-morrow. 

And weep ye not, my maidens free, 

Though death your mistress borrow ; 

For he for whom I die to-day. 

Shall die for me to-morrow. ’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


419 


Again she changed the tune to one wilder, less monotonous, 
and less regular. But of the words only a fragment or two 
could be collected by those who listened to this singular scene : 

‘ Proud Maisie is in the wood, 

AValking so early. 

Sweet Robin sits on the bush, 

Singing so rarely. 

‘ ‘ Tell me, thou bonny bird, 

When shall I marry me ? ” 

“ When six braw gentlemen 
Kirk ward shall carry ye.” 


“ Who makes the bridal bed. 
Birdie, say truly ? ” 

‘ ‘ The grey-headed sexton. 
That delves the gi’ave duly. ” 


The glowworm o’er grave and stone 
Shall light thee steady ; 

The owl from the steeple sing, 

“Welcome, proud lady.”’ 

Her voice died away with the last notes, and she fell into a 
slumber, from which the experienced attendant assured them 
that she never would awake at all, or only in the death-agony. 

The nurse’s prophecy proved true. The poor maniac parted 
with existence without again uttering a sound of any kind. 
But our travellers did not witness this catastrophe. They left 
the hospital as soon as Jeanie had satisfied herself that no 
elucidation of her sister’s misfortunes was to be hoped from the 
dying person.* 


See Madge Wildfire. Note 33. 


CHAPTER XLI 


Wilt thou go on with me ? 

The moon is bright, the sea is calm, 

And I know well the ocean paths . . . 

Thou wilt go on with me ! 

Thalaha. 

The fatigue and agitation of these various scenes had agitated 
Jeanie so much, notwithstanding her robust strength of con- 
stitution, that Archibald judged it necessary that she should 
have a day’s repose at the village of Longtown. It was in vain 
that Jeanie herself protested against any delay. The Duke of 
Argyle’s man of confidence was of course consequential ; and as 
he had been bred to the medical profession in his youth — at 
least he used this expression to describe his having, thirty 
years before, pounded for six months in the mortar of old 
Mungo Mangleman, the surgeon at Greenock — he was obstinate 
whenever a matter of health was in question. 

In this case he discovered febrile symptoms, and having once 
made a happy application of that learned phrase to Jeanie’s 
case, all farther resistance became in vain ; and she was glad 
to acquiesce, and even to go to bed and drink water- gruel, in 
order that she might possess her soul in quiet, and without 
interruption. 

Mr. Archibald was equally attentive in another particular. 
He observed that the execution of the old w^oman, and the 
miserable fate of her daughter, seemed to have had a more 
powerful effect upon Jeanie’s mind than the usual feelings of 
humanity might naturally have been expected to occasion. 
Yet she was obviously a strong-minded, sensible young woman, 
and in no respect subject to nervous affections ; and therefore 
Archibald, being ignorant of any special connexion between his 
master’s 'protegee and these unfortunate persons, excepting that 
she had seen Madge formerly in Scotland, naturally imputed 
the strong impression these events had made upon her to her 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


421 


assOciatiilg them with the unhappy circumstances in which her 
sister had so lately stopd. He became anxious, therefore, to 
prevent anything occurring which might recall these associa- 
tions to Jeanie’s mind. 

Archibald had speedily an opportunity of exercising this 
precaution. A pedlar brought to Longtown that evening, 
amongst other wares, a large broadside sheet, giving an account 
of the ‘ Last Speech and Execution of Margaret Murdockson, 
and of the Barbarous Murder of her Daughter, Magdalene or 
Madge Murdockson, called Madge Wildfire ; and of her Pious 
Conversation with his Reverence Archdeacon Fleming ’ ; which 
authentic publication had apparently taken place on the day 
they left Carlisle, and being an article of a nature peculiarly 
acceptable to such country-folk as were within hearing of the 
transaction, the itinerant bibliopolist had forthwith added them 
to his stock in trade. He found a merchant sooner than he 
expected; for Archibald, much applauding his own pmdence, 
purchased the whole lot for two shillings and ninepence ; and the 
pedlar, delighted with the profit of such a wholesale transaction, 
instantly returned to Carlis],p to supply himself with more. 

The considerate Mr. Archibald was about to commit his 
whole purchase to the flames, but it was rescued by the yet 
more considerate dairy -damsel, Avho said, very prudently, it 
w'as a pity to waste so much paper, which might crepe hair, 
pin up bonnets, and serve many other useful purposes; and 
who promised to put the parcel into her own trunk, and keep 
I it carefully out of the sight of Mrs. Jeanie Deans : ‘ Though, 
by the by, she had no great notion of folk being so very nice. 
Mrs. Deans might have had enough to think about the gallows 
all this time to endure a sight of it, without all this to do 
about it.’ 

Archibald reminded the dame of the dairy of the Duke’s 
very particular charge that they should be attentive and civil 
to Jeanie ; as also that they were to part company soon, and 
consequently would not be doomed to observing any one’s 
health or temper during the rest of the journey ; with which 
answer Mrs. Dolly Dutton was obliged to hold herself satisfied. 

On the morning they resumed their journey, and prosecuted 
it successfully, travelling through Dumfriesshire and part of 
Lanarkshire, until they arrived at the small town of Rutherglen, 
within about four miles of Glasgow. Here an express brought 
letters to Archibald from the principal agent of the Duke of 
' Argyle in Edinburgh. 


422 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


He said nothing of their contents that evening ; but when 
they were seated in the carriage the next day, the faithful 
squire informed Jeanie that he had received directions from 
the Duke’s factor, to whom his Grace had recommended him to 
carry her, if she had no objection, for a stage or two beyond 
Glasgow. Some temporary causes of discontent had occasioned 
tumults in that city and the neighbourhood, which would render 
it unadvisable for Mrs. Jeanie Deans to travel alone and unpro- 
tected betwixt that city and Edinburgh; whereas, by going- 
forward a little farther, they would meet one of his Grace’s sub- 
factors, who was coming down from the Highlands to Edin- 
burgh with his wife, and under whose charge she might journey 
with comfort and in safety. 

Jeanie remonstrated against this arrangement. ‘She had 
been lang,’ she said, ‘ frae hame : her father and her sister 
behoved to be very anxious to see her; there were other 
friends she had that werena weel in health. She was willing 
to pay for man and horse at Glasgow, and surely naebody 
wad meddle wi’ sae harmless and feckless a creature as she 
was. She was muckle obliged by the offer ; but never hunted 
deer langed for its resting-place as I do to find myself at St. 
Leonard’s.’ 

The groom of the chambers exchanged a look with his female 
companion, which seemed so full of meaning that Jeanie 
screamed aloud — ‘ 0, Mr. Archibald — Mrs. Dutton, if ye ken of 
ony thing that has happened at St. Leonard’s, for God’s sake — 
for pity’s sake, tell me, and dinna keep me in suspense ! ’ 

‘ I really know nothing, Mrs. Deans,’ said the groom of the 
chambers. 

‘ And I — I — I am sure I knows as little,’ said the dame of 
the dairy, while some communication seemed to tremble on her 
lips, which, at a glance of Archibald’s eye, she appeared to 
swallow down, and compressed her lips thereafter into a state 
of extreme and vigilant firmness, as if she had been afraid of its 
bolting out before she was aware. 

Jeanie saw that there was to be something concealed from 
her, and it was only the repeated assurances of Archibald that 
her father — her sister— all her friends were, as far as he knew, 
well and happy, that at all pacified her alarm. From such 
respectable people as those with whom she travelled she could 
apprehend no harm, and yet her distress was so obvious that 
Archibald, as a last resource, pulled out and put into her hand 
a slip of paper, on which these words were written : — 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


423 


‘Jeanie Deans — You will do me a favour by going with 
Archibald and my female domestic a day’s journey beyond 
Glasgow, and asking them no questions, which will greatly 
I oblige your friend, Argylb & Greenwich.’ 

Although this laconic epistle, from a nobleman to whom she 
was bound by such inestimable obligations, silenced all Jeanie’s 
I objections to the proposed route, it rather added to than dimin- 
ished the eagerness of her curiosity. The proceeding to Glasgow 
! seemed now no longer to be an object with her fellow-travellers. 
On the contrary, they kept the left-hand side of the river Clyde, 
and travelled through a thousand beautiful and changing views 
down the side of that noble stream, till, ceasing to hold its 
^ inland character, it began to assume that of a navigable river. 

I ‘You are not for gaun intill Glasgow, then?’ said Jeanie, as 

■ she observed that the drivers made no motion for inclining their 
i horses’ heads towards the ancient bridge, which was then the 

only mode of access to St. Mungo’s capital. 

‘ No,’ replied Archibald ; ‘ there is some popular commotion, 
and as our Duke is in opposition to the court, perhaps we might 
be too well received ; or they might take it in their heads to re- 
member that the Captain of Carrick came down upon them with 
his Highlandmen in the time of Shawfield’s mob * in 1725, and 
then we would be too ill received. And, at any rate, it is best 

■ for us, and for me in particular, who may be supposed to possess 
his Grace’s mind upon many particulars, to leave the good people 

I of the Gorbals to act according to their own imaginations, with- 
out either provoking or encouraging them by my presence.’ 

To reasoning of such tone and consequence Jeanie had 
nothing to reply, although it seemed to her to contain fully as 
1 much self-importance as truth. 

I The carriage meantime rolled on ; the river expanded itself, 

I and gradually assumed the dignity of an estuary, or arm of the 
I sea. The influence of the advancing and retiring tides became 
I more and more evident, and in the beautiful words of him of the 
I laurel wreath, the river waxed 

A broader and a broader stream. 

The cormorant stands upon its shoals, 

His black and dripping wings 
Half open’d to the wind, t 


* Soft Note 34. 

t Prom Southey’s Thalaba, bk. xi. stanza 36 (Laing). 


424 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ Which way lies Inverary h ’ said Jeanie, gazing on the dusky | 
ocean of Highland hills, which now, piled above each other, and t 
intersected by many a lake, stretched aAvay on the opposite side j 
of the river to the northward. ‘ Is yon high castle the Duke’s i 
hoose ? ’ I 

‘That, Mrs. Deans? Lud help thee,’ replied Archibald; ‘ 
‘that’s the old Castle of Dunbarton, the strongest place in | 
Europe, be the other what it may. Sir William Wallace was > 
governor of it in the old wars with the English, and his Grace .■ 
is governor just now. It is always entrusted to the best man 
in Scotland.’ ' 

‘ And does the Duke live on that high rock, then ? ’ demanded , 
Jeanie. ' 

‘ No, no, he has his deputy-governor, who commands in his ■ 
absence ; he lives in the white house you see at the bottom of I 
the rock. His Grace does not reside there himself.’ I 

‘ I think not, indeed,’ said the dairy woman, upon whose 
mind the road, since they had left Dumfries, had made no very 
favourable impression ; ‘ for if he did, he might go whistle for 
a dairywoman, an he were the only duke in England. I did : 
not leave my place and my friends to come down to see cows 1 
starve to death upon hills as they be at that pig-stye of Elfin- 
foot, as you call it, Mr. Archibald, or to be perched up on the 
top of a rock, like a squirrel in his cage, hung out of a three 
pair of stairs window.’ 

Inwardly chuckling that these symptoms of recalcitration 
had not taken place until the fair malcontent was, as he 
mentally termed it, under his thumb, Archibald coolly replied, 

‘ That the hills were none of his making, nor did he know how 
to mend them ; but as to lodging, they would soon be in a 
house of the Duke’s in a very pleasant island called Roseneath, 
where they went to wait for shipping to take them to Inverary, 
and would meet the company with whom Jeanie was to return 
to Edinburgh.’ 

‘An island !’ said Jeanie, who, in the course of her various 
and adventurous travels, had never quitted terra jirma, ‘then I 
am doubting we maun gang in ane of these boats ; they look 

unco sma’, and the waves are something rough, and ’ 

‘ Mr. Archibald,’ said Mrs. Dutton, ‘ I will not consent to it ; 

I was never engaged to leave the country, and I desire you 
will bid the boys drive round the other way to the Duke’s 
house.’ 

‘There is a safe pinnace belonging to his Grace, ma’am. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


425 


close by,’ replied Archibald, ‘ and you need be under no appre- 
hensions whatsoever.’ 

‘ But I am under apprehensions,’ said the damsel ; ‘ and I 
insist upon going round by land, Mr. Archibald, were it ten 
miles about.’ 

‘ I am sorry I cannot oblige you, madam, as Roseneath 
happens to be an island.’ 

‘ If it were ten islands,’ said the incensed dame, ‘ that’s no 
reason why I should be drowned in going over the seas to it.’ 

‘ No reason why you should be drowned, certainly, ma’am,’ 
answered the unmoved groom of the chambers, ‘ but an admir- 
able good one why you cannot proceed to it by land.’ And, 
fixed his master’s mandates to perform, he pointed with his 
hand, and the drivers, turning off the highroad, proceeded 
towards a small hamlet of fishing huts, where a shallop, some- 
what more gaily decorated than any which they had yet seen, 
having a flag which displayed a boar’s head, crested with a 
ducal coronet, waited with two or three seamen and as many 
Highlanders. 

The carriage stopped, and the men began to unyoke their 
horses, while Mr. Archibald gravely superintended the removal 
of the baggage from the carriage to the little vessel. ‘ Has 
the “ Caroline ” been long arrived ? ’ said Archibald to one of the 
seamen. 

‘ She has been here in five days from Liverpool, and she’s 
lying down at Greenock,’ answered the fellow. 

‘Let the horses and carriage go down to Greenock, then,’ 
said Archibald, ‘and be embarked there for Inverary when I 
send notice : they may stand in my cousin’s, Duncan Archibald 
the stabler’s. Ladies,’ he added, ‘I hope you will get your- 
selves ready, we must not lose the tide.’ 

‘Mrs. Deans,’ said the Cowslip of Inverary, ‘you may do as 
you please, but I will sit here all night, rather than go into 
that there painted egg-shell. Fellow — fellow ! (this was ad- 
dressed to a Highlander who was lifting a travelling trunk), 
that trunk is mine, and that there band-box, and that pillion 
mail, and those seven bundles, and the paper bag ; and if you 
venture to touch one of them, it shall be at your peril.’ 

The Celt kept his eye fix^Bd on the speaker, then turned his 
head towards Archibald, and receiving no countervailing signal, 
he shouldered the portmanteau, and without farther notice of 
the distressed damsel, or paying any attention to remonstrances, 
which probably he did not understand, and would certainly 


426 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


have equally disregarded whether he understood them or not, 
moved off with Mrs. Dutton’s wearables, and deposited the 
trunk containing them safely in the boat. 

The baggage being stowed in safety, Mr. Archibald handed 
Jeanie out of the carriage, and, not without some tremor on her 
part, she was transported through the surf and placed in the 
boat. He then offered the same civility to his fellow-servant, 
but she was resolute in her refusal to quit the carriage, in 
which she now remained in solitary state, threatening all 
concerned or unconcerned with actions for wages and board- 
wages, damages and expenses, and numbering on her fingers 
the gowns and other habiliments from which she seemed in 
the act of being separated for ever. Mr. Archibald did not I 
give himself the trouble of making many remonstrances, which, 
indeed, seemed only to aggravate the damsel’s indignation, but 
spoke two or three words to the Highlanders in Gaelic; and 
the wily mountaineers, approaching the carriage cautiously, 
and without giving the slightest intimation of their intention, 
at once seized the recusant so effectually fast that she could 
neither resist nor struggle, and hoisting her on their shoulders 
in nearly an horizontal posture, rushed down with her to the 
beach, and through the surf, and, with no other inconvenience 
than ruffling her garments a little, deposited her in the boat ; 
but in a state of surprise, mortification, and terror at her 
sudden transportation which rendered her absolutely mute for 
two or three minutes. The men jumped in themselves; one 
tall fellow remained till he had pushed off the boat, and then 
tumbled in upon his companions. They took their oars and 
began to pull from the shore, then spread their sail and drove 
merrily across the firth. 

‘ You Scotch villain ! ’ said the infuriated damsel to Archibald, 

‘ how dare you use a person like me in this way ? ’ 

‘ Madam,’ said Archibald, with infinite composure, ‘ it’s high 
time you should know you are in the Duke’s country, and that 
there is not one of these fellows but would throw you out of 
the boat as readily as into it, if such were his Grace’s pleasure.’ 

‘ Then the Lord have mercy on me ! ’ said Mrs. Dutton. 

‘ If I had had any on myself I would never have engaged with 
you.’ 

‘It’s something of the latest to think of that now, Mrs. 
Dutton,’ said Archibald ; ‘but I assure you, you will find the 
Highlands have their pleasures. You will have a dozen of cow- 
milkers under your own authority at Inverary, and you may 



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MRS. DOLLY DUTTON OBJECTS TO CROSS THE WATER. 




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THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


427 


throw any of them into the lake if you have a mind, for the 
Duke’s head people are almost as great as himself.’ 

‘ This is a strange business, to be sure, Mr. Archibald,’ said 
the lady ; ‘ but I suppose I must make the best on’t. Are you 
sure the boat will not sink ? it leans terribly to one side, in my 
poor mind.’ 

‘ Fear nothing,’ said Mr. Archibald, taking a most important 
pinch of snuff ; ‘ this same ferry on Clyde knows us very well, 
or we know it, which is all the same ; no fear of any of our 
people meeting with any accident. We should have crossed 
from the opposite shore, but for the disturbances at Glasgow, 
which made it improper for his Grace’s people to pass through 
I the city.’ 

1 ‘Are you not afeard, Mrs. Deans,’ said the dairy vestal, 

1 addressing Jeanie, who sat, not in the most comfortable state 
of mind, by the side of Archibald, who himself managed the 
i helm — ‘ are you not afeard of these wild men with their naked 
knees, and of this nut-shell of a thing, that seems bobbing up 
and down like a skimming-dish in a milk-pail 1 ’ 

I ‘No — no, madam,’ answered Jeanie, with some hesitation, 

‘ I am not feared ; for I hae seen Hielandmen before, though 
I never was sae near them; and for the danger of the deep 
waters, I trust there is a Providence by sea as well as by land.’ 

‘ Well,’ said Mrs. Dutton, ‘ it is a beautiful thing to have 
learned to write and read, for one can always say such fine 
words whatever should befall them.’ 

Archibald, rejoicing in the impression which his vigorous 
measures had made upon the intractable dairymaid, now applied 
himself, as a sensible and good-natured man, to secure by fair 
means the ascendency which he had obtained by some whole- 
some violence ; and he succeeded so well in representing to her 
the idle nature of her fears, and the impossibility of leaving her 
upon the beach enthroned in an empty carriage, that the good 
i understanding of the party was completely revived ere they 
landed at Roseneath. 


CHAPTER XLII 


Did Fortune guide, , 

Or rather Destiny, our bark, to which \ 

We could appoint no port, to this best place ? ' 

Fletcher. 

The islands in the Firth of Clyde, which the daily passage of | 
so many smoke -pennoned steamboats now renders so easily j 
accessible, were in our fathers’ times secluded spots, frequented 
by no travellers, and few visitants of any kind. They are of 
exquisite yet varied beauty. Arran, a mountainous region, or i 
Alpine island, abounds with the grandest and most romantic i 
scenery. Bute is of a softer and more woodland character. 
The Cumrays, as if to exhibit a contrast to both, are green, 
level, and bare, forming the links of a sort of natural bar, 
which is drawn along the mouth of the firth, leaving large i 
intervals, however, of ocean. Roseneath, a smaller isle, lies | 
much higher up the firth, and towards its western shore, near 
the opening of che lake called the Care Loch, and not far from | 
Loch Long and Loch Scant, or the Holy Loch, which wind from 
the mountains of the Western Highlands to join the estuary of ; 
the Clyde. 

In these isles the severe frost winds which tyrannise over the i 
vegetable creation during a Scottish spring are comparatively 
little felt; nor, excepting the gigantic strength of Arran, are [ 
they much exposed to the Atlantic storms, lying landlocked and j 
protected to the westward by the shores of Ayrshire [Argyllshire]. | 
Accordingly, the weeping-willow, the weeping-birch, and other 
trees of early and pendulous shoots, flourish in these favoured i 
recesses in a degree unknown in our eastern districts ; and the j 
air is also said to possess that mildness which is favourable to 
consumptive cases. ! 

The picturesque beauty of the island of Roseneath, in ji 
particular, had such recommendations that the Earls and jl 
Dukes of Argyle from an early period made it their occasional j 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


429 


residence, and had their temporary accommodation in a fishing 
or hunting lodge, which succeeding improvements have since 
transformed into a palace. It was in its original simplicity 
when the little bark which w^e left traversing the firth at the 
end of last chapter approached the shores of the isle. 

When they touched the landing-place, which w^as partly 
! shrouded by some old low but wide-spreading oak-trees, inter- 
' mixed with hazel-bushes, two or three figures were seen as if 
awaiting their arrival. To these Jeanie paid little attention, so 
that it was with a shock of surprise almost electrical that, upon 
being canned by the rowers out of the boat to the shore, she 
I was received in the arms of her father ! 

It was too wonderful to be believed — too much like a happy 
dream to have the stable feeling of reality. She extricated 
herself from his close and affectionate embrace, and held him at 
ann’s length to satisfy her mind that it was no illusion. But 
the fonn was indisputable — Douce David Deans himself, in his 
best light blue Sunday’s coat, wdth broad metal buttons, and 
waistcoat and breeches of the same; his strong gramashes or 
leggins of thick grey cloth ; the very copper buckles ; the 
broad Lowland blue bonnet, thrown back as he lifted his 
eyes to Heaven in speechless gratitude ; the grey locks that 
straggled from beneath it down his weather-beaten ‘ haffets ’ ; 
the bald and furrow^ed forehead ; the clear blue eye, that, un- 
dimmed by years, gleamed bright and pale from under its shaggy 
grey pent-house; the features, usually so stern and stoical, 
now melted into the unwonted expression of rapturous joy, 
affection, and gratitude — were all those of David Deans ; and 
so happily did they assort together, that, should I ever again 
see my friends Wilkie or Allan, I will try to bonw or steal 
from them a sketch of this very scene. 

‘Jeanie — my ain Jeanie — my best — mymaist dutiful bairn ! 
The Lord of Israel be thy father, for I am hardly worthy of 
thee ! Thou hast redeemed our captivity, brought back the 
j honour of our house. Bless thee, my bairn, with mercies pro- 
j mised and purchased ! But He has blessed thee, in the good 
i of which He has made thee the instrument.’ 
j These words broke from him not without tears, though 
I David was of no melting mood. Archibald had, with delicate 
■ attention, withdrawn the spectators from the interview, so that 
the wood and setting sun alone were witnesses of the expan- 
sion of their feelings. 

‘And Efl&e? — and Effie, dear father?’ was an eager inter- 


430 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


jectional question which Jeanie repeatedly threw in among her 
expressions of joyful thankfulness. 

‘ Ye will hear — ye will hear,’ said David, hastily, and ever 
and anon renewed his grateful acknowledgments to Heaven 
for sending Jeanie safe down from the land of prelatic deadness 
and schismatic heresy ; and had delivered her from the dangers j 
of the way, and the lions that were in the path. i| 

‘ And Effie ? ’ repeated her affectionate sister again and again, j 
‘And — and (fain would she have said Butler, but she modi- ' 
fied the direct inquiry) — and Mr. and Mrs. Saddletree — and 
Dumbiedikes — and a’ friends ? ’ 

‘ A’ weel — a’ weel, praise to His name ! ’ 

‘ And — and Mr. Butler ? He wasna weel when I gaed awa’. ’ 

‘ He is quite mended — quite weel,’ replied her father. 

‘ Thank God ! but 0, dear father, Effie ? — Effie '? ’ 

‘ You will never see her mair, my bairn,’ answered Deans in 
a solemn tone. ‘ You are the ae and only leaf left now on the 
auld tree ; heal be your portion ! ’ 

‘ She is dead ! She is slain ! It has come ower late ! ’ ex- 
claimed Jeanie, wringing her hands. 

‘No, Jeanie,’ returned Deans, in the same grave, melancholy 
tone. ‘ She lives in the flesh, and is at freedom from earthly 
restraint, if she were as much alive in faith and as free from 
the bonds of Satan.’ 

‘The Lord protect us!’ said Jeanie. ‘Can the unhappy 
bairn hae left you for that villain 'i ’ 

‘ It is ower truly spoken,’ said Deans. ‘ She has left her auld 
father, that has wept and prayed for her. She has left her 
sister, that travailed and toiled for her like a mother. She has 
left the bones of her mother, and the land of her people, and 
she is ower the march wi’ that son of Belial. She has made a 
moonlight flitting of it.’ He paused, for a feeling betwixt 
sorrow and strong resentment choked his utterance. 

‘And wi’ that man — that fearfu’ man?’ said Jeanie. ‘And 
she has left us to gang aff wi’ him ? 0 Effie, Effie, wha could 

hae thought it, after sic a deliverance as you had been gifted 
wi’ 1 ’ 

‘ She went out from us, my bairn, because she -was not of us,’ 
replied David. ‘ She is a withered branch will never bear fruit 
of grace — a scapegoat gone forth into the wilderness of the 
world, to carry wi’ her, as I trust, the sins of our little congrega- 
tion. The peace of the warld gang wi’ her, and a better peace 
when she has the grace to turn to it 1 If she is of His elected. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


431 


His ain hour will come. What would her mother have said, 
that famous and memorable matron, Rebecca M ‘Naught, whose 
memory is like a flower of sweet savour in Newbattle and a 
pot of frankincense in Lugton ? But be it sae ; let her part — 
let her gang her gate— let her bite on her ain bridle. The Lord 
kens His time. She was the bairn of prayers, and may not prove 
an utter castaway. But never, Jeanie — never more let her 
name be spoken between you and me. She hath passed from 
us like the brook which vanisheth when the summer waxeth 
warm, as patient Job saith ; let her pass, and be forgotten.’ 

There was a melancholy pause which followed these expres- 
sions. J eanie would fain have asked more circumstances relating 
to her sister’s departure, but the tone of her father’s prohibition 
was positive. She was about to mention her interview with 
Staunton at his father’s rectory ; but, on hastily running over 
the particulars in her memory, she thought that, on the whole, 
they were more likely to aggravate than diminish his distress 
of mind. She turned, therefore, the discourse from this painful 
subject, resolving to suspend farther inquiry until she should 
see Butler, from whom she expected to learn the particulars of 
her sister’s elopement. 

But when was she to see Butler ? was a question she could 
not forbear asking herself, especially while her father, as if 
eager to escape from the subject of his youngest daughter, 
pointed to the opposite shore of Dunbartonshire, and asking 
Jeanie ‘if it werena a pleasant abode?’ declared to her his 
intention of removing his earthly tabernacle to that country, 
‘ in respect he was solicited by his Grace the Duke of Argyle, 
as one well skilled in country labour and a’ that appertained 
to flocks and herds, to superintend a store farm whilk his Grace 
had taen into his ain hand for the improvement of stock.’ 

Jeanie’s heart sunk within her at this declaration. ‘She 
allowed it was a goodly and pleasant land, and sloped bonnily 
to the western sun ; and she doubtedna that the pasture might 
be very gude, for the grass looked green, for as drouthy as the 
weather had been. But it was far frae hame, and she thought 
she wad be often thinking on the bonny spots of turf, sae fu’ of 
go wans and yellow kingcups, amang the Crags at St. Leonard’s.’ 

‘Dinna speak on’t, Jeanie,’ said her father; ‘I wish never 
to hear it named mair — that is, after the rouping is ower, and 
the bills paid. But I brought a’ the beasts ower-bye that I 
thought ye wad like best. There is Gowans, and there’s your ain 
brockit cow, and the wee hawkit ane, that ye ca’d — I needna tell 


432 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


ye how ye ca’d it ; but I couldna bid them sell the petted 
creature, though the sight o’t may sometimes gie us a sair heart : 
it’s no the poor dumb creature’s fault. And ane or twa beasts 
mair I hae reserved, and I caused them to be driven before the 
other beasts, that men might say, as when the son of Jesse 
returned from battle, “This is David’s spoil.”’ 

Upon more particular inquiry, Jeanie found new occasion to 
admire the active beneficence of her friend the Duke of Argyle. 
While establishing a sort of experimental farm on the skirts of 
his immense Highland estates, he had been somewhat at a loss 
to find a proper person in whom to vest the charge of it. The 
conversation his Grace had upon country matters with Jeanie 
Deans during their return from Richmond had impressed him 
with a belief that the father, whose experience and success she 
so frequently quoted, must be exactly the sort of person whom 
he wanted. When the condition annexed to Effie’s pardon 
rendered it highly probable that David Deans would choose to 
change his place of residence, this idea again occurred to the 
Duke more strongly, and as he was an enthusiast equally in 
agriculture and in benevolence, he imagined he was serving the 
purposes of both when he wrote to the gentleman in Edinburgh 
entrusted with his affairs to inquire into the character of David 
Deans, cow-feeder, and so forth, at St. Leonard’s Crags ; and if 
he found him such as he had been represented, to engage him 
without delay, and on the most liberal terms, to superintend his 
fancy-farm in Dunbartonshire. 

The proposal was made to old David by the gentleman so 
commissioned on the second day after his daughter’s pardon had 
reached Edinburgh. His resolution to leave St. Leonard’s had 
been already formed ; the honour of an express invitation from 
the Duke of Argyle to superintend a department where so much 
skill and diligence was required was in itself extremely flatter- 
ing ; and the more so, because honest David, who was not with- 
out an excellent opinion of his own talents, persuaded himself 
that, by accepting this charge, he would in some sort repay the 
great favour he had received at the hands of the Argyle family. 
The appointments, including the right of sufficient grazing for a 
small stock of his own, were amply liberal ; and David’s keen 
eye saw that the situation was convenient for trafficking to 
advantage in Highland cattle. There was risk of ‘hership’ 
from the neighbouring mountains, indeed, but the awful name 
of the Duke of Argyle would be a great security, and a trifle of 
black-mail would, David was aware, assure his safety. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


433 


Still, however, there were two points on which he haggled. 
The first was the character of the clergyman with whose 
worship he was to join ; and on this delicate point he received, 
as we will presently show the reader, perfect satisfaction. The 
next obstacle was the condition of his youngest daughter, 
obliged as she was to leave Scotland for so many years. 

The gentleman of the law smiled, and said, ‘ There was no 
occasion to interpret that clause very strictly; that if the 
young woman left Scotland for a few months, or even weeks, 
and came to her father’s new residence by sea from the western 
side of England, nobody would know of her arrival, or at least 
nobody who had either the right or inclination to give her 
disturbance. The extensive heritable jurisdictions of his Grace 
excluded the interference of other magistrates with those living 
on his estates, and they who were in immediate dependence on 
him would receive orders to give the young woman no dis- 
turbance. Living on the verge of the Highlands, she might, 
indeed, be said to be out of Scotland, that is, beyond the 
bounds of ordinary law and civilisation.’ 

Old Deans was not quite satisfied with this reasoning ; but 
the elopement of Effie, which took place on the third night 
after her liberation, rendered his residence at St. Leonard’s so 
detestable to him that he closed at once with the proposal 
which had been made him, and entered with pleasure into the 
idea of surprising Jeanie, as had been proposed by the Duke, 
to render the change of residence more striking to her. The 
Duke had apprised Archibald of these circumstances, with 
orders to act according to the instructions he should receive 
from Edinburgh, and by which accordingly he was directed to 
bring Jeanie to Roseneath. 

The father and daughter communicated these matters to 
each other, now stopping, now walking slowly towards the 
Lodge, which showed itself among the trees, at about half a 
mile’s distance from the little bay in which they had landed. 

As they approached the house, David Deans informed his 
daughter, with somewhat like a grim smile, which was the 
utmost advance he ever made towards a mirthful expression of 
visage, that ‘ there was baith a worshipful gentleman and ane 
reverend gentleman residing therein. The worshipful gentle- 
man was his honour the Laird of Knocktarlitie, who was bailie 
of the lordship under the Duke of Argyle, ane Hieland gentle- 
man, tarred -wi’ the same stick,’ David doubted, ‘as mony of 
them, namely, a hasty and choleric temper, and a neglect of 

28 


VII 


434 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


the higher things that belong to salvation, and also a gripping 
unto the things of this world, without muckle distinction of 
property; but, however, ane gude hospitable gentleman, with 
whom it would be a part of wisdom to live on a gude under- 
standing ; for Hielandmen were hasty — ower hasty. As for the 
reverend person of whom he had spoken, he W’as candidate by 
favour of the Duke of Argyle (for David would not for the 
universe have called him presentee) for the kirk of the parish 
in which their farm w^as situated, and he was likely to be 
highly acceptable unto the Christian souls of the parish, who 
were hungering for spiritual manna, having been fed but upon 
sour Hieland so wens by Mr. Duncan MacDonought, the last 
minister, who began the morning duly, Sunday and Saturday, 
with a mutchkin of usquebaugh. But I need say the less 
about the present lad,’ said David, again grimly grimacing, ‘as 
I think ye may hae seen him afore ; and here he is come to 
meet us.’ 

She had indeed seen him before, for it was no other than 
Reuben Butler himself. 


CHAPTER XLIII 


No more slialt thou behold thy sister’s face ; 

Thou hast already had her last embrace. 

Elegy on Mrs. Anne Killigrew. 

This second surprise had been accomplished for Jeanie Deans 
by the rod of the same benevolent enchanter whose power 
had transplanted her father from the Crags of St. Leonard’s 
to the banks of the Gare Loch. The Duke of Argyle was 
not a person to forget the hereditary debt of gratitude which 
had been bequeathed to him by his grandfather in favour 
of the grandson of old Bible Butler. He had internally re- 
solved to provide for Reuben Butler in this kirk of Knock- 
tarlitie, of which the incumbent had just departed this life. 
Accordingly, his agent received the necessary instructions for 
that purpose, under the qualifying condition always that the 
learning and character of Mr. Butler should be found proper 
for the charge. Upon inquiry, these were found as highly 
satisfactory as had been reported in the case of David Deans 
himself. 

By this preferment, the Duke of Argyle more essentially 
benefited his friend and 'protegee^ Jeanie, than he himself was 
aware of, since he contributed to remove objections in her 
father’s mind to the match, which he had no idea had been in 
existence. 

AVe have already noticed that Deans had something of a pre- 
judice against Butler, which was, perhaps, in some degree owing 
to his possessing a sort of consciousness that the poor usher 
looked with eyes of affection upon his eldest daughter. This, 
in David’s eyes, was a sin of presumption, even although it 
should not be followed by any overt act or actual proposal. 
But the lively interest which Butler had displayed in his dis- 
tresses since Jeanie set forth on her London expedition, and 
which, therefore, he ascribed to personal respect for himself 


436 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


individually, had greatly softened the feelings of irritability 
with which David had sometimes regarded him. And, while 
he was in this good disposition towards Butler, another in- 
cident took place which had great influence on the old man’s 
mind. 

So soon as the shock of Eflie’s second elopement was over, it 
was Deans’s early care to collect and refund to the Laird of 
Dumhiedikes the money which he had lent for Effie’s trial and 
for Jeanie’s travelling expenses. The Laird, the pony, the 
cocked hat, and the tobacco-pipe had not been seen at St. 
Leonard’s Crags for many a day ; so that, in order to pay this j 
debt, David was under the necessity of repairing in person to j 
the mansion of Dumhiedikes. I 

He found it in a state of unexpected bustle. There were ! 
workmen pulling down some of the old hangings and replacing 
them with others, altering, repairing, scmbbing, painting, and 
whitewashing. There was no knowing the old house, which 
had been so long the mansion of sloth and silence. The Laird 
himself seemed in some confusion, and his reception, though 
kind, lacked something of the reverential cordiality with which 
he used to greet David Deans. There was a change also, David 
did not very well know of what nature, about the exterior of 
this landed proprietor — an improvement in the shape of his 
garments, a spruceness in the air with which they were put on, 
that were both novelties. Even the old hat looked smarter ; 
the cock had been newly pointed, the lace had been refreshed, 
and instead of slouching backward or forward on the Laird’s 
head as it happened to be thrown on, it was adjusted with ; 
a knowing inclination over one eye. 

David Deans opened his business and told down the cash. 
Dumhiedikes steadily inclined his ear to the one, and counted 
the other with great accuracy, interrupting David, while he was 
talking of the redemption of the captivity of Judah, to ask him 
whether he did not think one or two of the guineas looked 
rather light. When he was satisfied on this point, had pocketed 
his money, and had signed a receipt, he addressed David with 
some little hesitation — ‘Jeanie wad be writing: ye something, 
gudeman ? ’ 

‘About the siller?’ replied Davie. ‘Nae doubt she did.’ 

‘ And did she say nae mair about me ? ’ asked the Laird. 

‘Nae mair but kind and Christian wishes; what suld she 
hae said ? ’ replied David, fully expecting that the Laird’s long 
courtship, if his dangling after Jeanie deserves so active a name, ^ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


437 


was now coming to a point. And so indeed it was, but not to 
that point which he wished or expected. 

‘Aweel, she kens her ain mind best, gudeman. I hae made 
a clean house o’ Jenny Balchristie and her niece. They Avere a 
bad pack — stealed meat and mault, and loot the carters magg 
the coals. I’m to be married the morn, and kirkit on Sunday.’ 

Whatever David felt, he was too proud and too steady-minded 
to show any unpleasant surprise in his countenance and manner. 

‘ I wuss ye happy, sir, through Him that gies happiness ; 
marriage is an honourable state.’ 

‘ And I am wedding into an honourable house, David — the 
Laird of Lickpelf’s youngest daughter ; she sits next us in the 
kirk, and that’s the way I came to think on’t.’ 

There was no more to be said, but again to wish the Laird 
joy, to taste a cup of his liquor, and to walk back again to St. 
Leonard’s, musing on the mutability of human affairs and human 
resolutions. The expectation that one day or other Jeanie 
would be Lady Dumbiedikes had, in spite of himself, kept a 
more absolute possession of David’s mind than he himself was 
aware of. At least it had hitherto seemed an union at all times 
Avithin his daughter’s reach, Avhenever she might choose to give 
her silent lover any degree of encouragement, and noAv it A\^as 
vanished for ever. David returned, therefore, in no very gracious 
humour for so good a man. He Avas angry Avith Jeanie for not 
having encouraged the Laird ; he Avas angry Avith the Laird for 
requiring encouragement ; and he A\'as angry Avith himself for 
being angry at all on the occasion. 

On his return he found the gentleman Avho managed the 
Duke of Argyle’s affairs Avas desirous of seeing him, Avith a 
vieAv to completing the arrangement betAveen them. Thus, after 
a brief repose, he Avas obliged to set off aneAv for Edinburgh, so 
that old May Hettly declared, ‘ That a’ this Avas to end Avith the 
master just AA^alking himself aff his feet.’ 

When the business respecting the farm had been talked over 
and arranged, the professional gentleman acquainted David 
Deans, in ansAver to his inquiries concerning the state of public 
Avorship, that it Avas the pleasure of the Duke to put an ex- 
cellent young clergyman called Reuben Butler into the parish, 
Avhich was to be his future residence. 

‘ Reuben Butler ! ’ exclaimed David — ‘ Reuben Butler, the 
usher at Liberton ? ’ 

‘ The very same,’ said the Duke’s commissioner. ‘ His Grace 
has heard an excellent character of him, and has some hereditary 


438 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


obligations to him besides ; few ministers will be so comfortable 
as I am directed to make Mr. Butler.’ 

‘ Obligations I The Duke ! Obligations to Reuben Butler ! 
Reuben Butler a placed minister of the Kirk of Scotland ! ’ ex- 
claimed David, in interminable astonishment, for somehow he 
had been led by the bad success which Butler had hitherto met 
with in all his undertakings to consider him as one of those 
stepsons of Fortune whom she treats with unceasing rigour, 
and ends with disinheriting altogether. 

There is, perhaps, no time at which we are disposed to think 
so highly of a friend as when we find him standing higher 
than we expected in the esteem of others. When assured of 
the reality of Butler’s change of prospects, David expressed his 
great satisfaction at his success in life, which, he observed, was 
entirely owing to himself (David). ‘ I advised his puir grand- 
mother, who was but a silly woman, to breed him up to the 
ministry ; and I prophesied that, with a blessing on his endea- 
vours, he would become a polished shaft in the temple. He 
may be something ower proud o’ his carnal learning, but a 
gude lad, and has the root of the matter ; as ministers gang 
now, where ye’ll find ane better, ye’ll find ten waur than 
Reuben Butler.’ 

He took leave of the man of business and walked home- 
ward, forgetting his weariness in the various speculations to 
which this wonderful piece of intelligence gave rise. Honest 
David had now, like other great men, to go to work to reconcile 
his speculative principles with existing circumstances; and, 
like other great men, when they set seriously about that task, 
he was tolerably successful. 

‘ Ought Reuben Butler in conscience to accept of this prefer- 
ment in the Kirk of Scotland, subject (as David at present 
thought that establishment was) to the Erastian encroachments 
of the civil power?’ This was the leading question, and he 
considered it carefully. ‘ The Kirk of Scotland was shorn of 
its beams, and deprived of its full artillery and banners of 
authority ; but still it contained zealous and fructifying pastors, 
attentive congregations, and, with all her spots and blemishes, 
the like of this kirk was nowhere else to be seen upon earth.’ 

David’s doubts had been too many and too critical to permit 
him ever unequivocally to unite himself with any of the dis- 
senters, who, upon various accounts, absolutely seceded from 
the national church. He had often joined in communion with 
such of the established clergy as approached nearest to the old 


TnE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


439 


Presbyterian model and principles of 1640. And although 
there were many things to be amended in that system, yet he 
remembered that he, David Deans, had himself ever been a 
humble pleader for the good old cause in a legal way, but 
without rushing into right-hand excesses, divisions, and separa- 
tions. But, as an enemy to separation, he might join the 
right-hand of fellowship with a minister of the Kirk of Scotland 
in its present model. Ergo, Reuben Butler might take pos- 
session of the parish of Knocktarlitie without forfeiting his 
friendship or favour — Q. E. D. But, secondly, came the trying 
point of lay patronage, which David Deans had ever maintained 
to be a coming in by the window and over the wall, a cheating 
and starving the souls of a whole parish, for the purpose of 
clothing the back and filling the belly of the incumbent. 

This presentation, therefore, from the Duke of Argyle, 
whatever was the worth and high character of that nobleman, 
was a limb of the brazen image, a portion of the evil thing, 
and with no kind of consistency could David bend his mind to 
favour such a transaction. But if the parishioners themselves 
joined in a general call to Reuben Butler to be their pastor, it 
did not seem quite so evident that the existence of this unhappy 
presentation was a reason for his refusing them the comforts 
of his doctrine. If the presbytery admitted him to the kirk 
in virtue rather of that act of patronage than of the general 
call of the congregation, that might be their error, and David 
allowed it was a heavy one. But if Reuben Butler accepted of 
the cure as tendered to him by those whom he was called to 
teach, and who had expressed themselves desirous to learn, 
David, after considering and reconsidering the matter, came, 
through the great virtue of ‘ if,’ to be of opinion that he might 
safely so act in that matter. 

There remained a third stumbling-block — the oaths to 
government exacted from the established clergymen, in which 
they acknowledge an Erastian king and parliament, and homolo- 
gate the incorporating Union between England and Scotland, 
through which the latter kingdom had become part and por- 
tion of the former, wherein Prelacy, the sister of Popery, had 
made fast her throne and elevated the horns of her mitre. 
These were symptoms of defection which had often made David 
cry out, ‘ My bowels — my bowels ! I am pained at the very 
heart ! ’ And he remembered that a godly Bow-head matron 
had been carried out of the Tolbooth Church in a swoon, beyond 
the reach of brandy and burnt feathers, merely on hearing 


440 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


these fearful words, ‘ It is enacted by the Lords qnritmil and 
temporal,’ pronounced from a Scottish pulpit, in the proem 
to the Porteous proclamation. These oaths w'ere, therefore, 
a deep compliance and dire abomination — a sin and a snare, 
and a danger and a defection. But this shibboleth was not 
always exacted. Ministers had respect to their own tender 
consciences and those of their brethren ; and it was not till a 
later period that the reins of discipline were taken up tight by 
the General Assemblies and presbyteries. The peacemaking 
particle came again to David’s assistance. If an incumbent 
was not called upon to make such compliances, and if he got a 
right entry into the church without intrusion, and by orderly 
appointment, why, upon the whole, David Deans came to be of 
opinion that the said incumbent might lawfully enjoy the 
spirituality and temporality of the cure of souls at Knocktar- 
litie, with stipend, manse, glebe, and all thereunto appertaining. 

The best and most upright-minded men are so strongly in- 
fluenced by existing circumstances, that it 'would be somewhat 
cruel to inquire too nearly what weight paternal affection gave 
to these ingenious trains of reasoning. Let David Deans’s 
situation be considered. He was just deprived of one daughter, 
and his eldest, to whom he owed so much, was cut off, by the 
sudden resolution of Dumbiedikes, from the high hope which 
David had entertained that she might one day be mistress of 
that fair lordship. Just while this disappointment was bearing 
heavy on his spirits, Butler comes before his imagination — no 
longer the half- starved threadbare usher, but fat and sleek 
and "fair, the beneficed minister of Knocktarlitie, beloved by 
his congregation, exemplary in his life, powerful in his 
doctrine, doing the duty of the kirk as never Highland min- 
ister did it before, turning sinners as a colley dog turns sheep, 
a favourite of the Duke of Argyle, and dmwing a stipend 
of eight hundred punds Scots and four chalders of victual. 
Here was a match making up, in David’s mind, in a tenfold 
degree, the disappointment in the case of Dumbiedikes, in so 
far as the goodman of St. Leonard’s held a powerful minister 
in much greater admiration than a mere landed proprietor. It 
did not occur to him, as an additional reason in favour of the 
match, that Jeanie might herself have some choice in the matter; 
for the idea of consulting her feelings never once entered into 
the honest man’s head, any more than the possibility that her 
inclination might perhaps differ from his own. 

The result of his meditations was, that he was called upon 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


441 


to take the management of the whole affair into his own hand, 
and give, if it should be found possible without sinful com- 
pliance, or backsliding, or defection of any kind, a worthy 
pastor to the kirk of Knocktarlitie. Accordingly, by the inter- 
vention of the honest dealer in butter -milk who dwelt in 
Liberton, David summoned to his presence Reuben Butler. 
]!^ven from this worthy messenger he was unable to conceal 
certain swelling emotions of dignity, insomuch that, when the 
carter had communicated his message to the usher, he added, 
that ‘ Certainly the gudeman of St. Leonard’s had some grand 
news to tell him, for he was as uplifted as a midden-cock upon 
pattens.’ 

Butler, it may readily be conceived, immediately obeyed 
the summons. His was a plain character, in which worth and 
good sense and simplicity were the principal ingredients ; but 
love, on this occasion, gave him a certain degree of address. 
He had received an intimation of the favour designed him by 
the Duke of Argyle, with what feelings those only can conceive 
who have experienced a sudden prospect of being raised to 
mdependence and respect, from penury and toil. He resolved, 
however, that the old man should retain all the consequence 
of being, in his own opinion, the first to communicate the im- 
portant intelligence. At the same time, he also determined 
that in the expected conference he would permit David Deans 
to expatiate at length upon the proposal in all its bearings, 
without irritating him either by interruption or contradiction. 
This last plan was the most prudent he could have adopted ; 
because, although there were many doubts w^hich David Deans 
could himself clear up to his own satisfaction, yet he might 
have been by no means disposed to accept the solution of any 
other person ; and to engage him in an argument w'ould have 
been certain to confirm him at once and for ever in the opinion 
which Butler chanced to impugn. 

He received his friend with an appearance of important 
gravity, which real misfortune had long compelled him to lay 
aside, and which belonged to those days of awful authority in 
which he predominated over Widow Butler, and dictated the 
mode of cultivating the crofts at Beersheba. He made known to 
Reuben with great prolixity the prospect of his changing his 
present residence for the charge of the Duke of Argyle’s stock 
farm in Dunbartonshire, and enumerated the various advantages 
of the situation with obvious self-congratulation; but assured the 
patient hearer that nothing had so much moved him to accept^ 


442 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


ance as the sense ‘ That, by his skill in bestial, he could render 
the most important services to his Grace the Duke of Argyle, 
to whom, in the late unhappy circumstance (here a tear 
dimmed the sparkle of pride in the old man’s eye), he had been 
sae muckle obliged. To put a rude Hielandman into sic a j 
charge,’ he continued, ‘ what could be expected but that he suld | 
be sic a chief est herdsman as wicked Doeg the Edomite; whereas, I 
while this grey head is to the fore, not a elute o’ them but sail be | 
as weel cared for as if they were the fatted kine of Pharaoh. | 
And now, Reuben, lad, seeing Ave maun remove our tent to a 
strange country, ye will be casting a dolefu’ look after us, and 
thinking with Avhom ye are to hold council anent your govern- | 
ment in thae slippery and backsliding times ; and nae doubt | 
remembering that the auld man, David Deans, was made the I 
instrument to bring you out of the mire of schism and heresy, , 
wherein your father’s house delighted to Avallow ; aften also, nae 
doubt, when ye are pressed wi’ ensnaring trials and tentations 
and heart-plagues, you, that are like a recruit that is marching 
for the first time to the took of drum, Avill miss the auld, bauld, 
and experienced veteran soldier that has felt the brunt of mony 
a foul day, and heard the bullets whistle as aften as he has hairs 
left on his auld poAV.’ 

It is very possible that Butler might internally be of opinion 
that the reflection on his ancestor’s peculiar tenets might have 
been spared, or that he might be presumptuous enough even to 
think that, at his years and Avith his own lights, he might be 
able to hold his course without the pilotage of honest David. But 
he only replied by expressing his regret that anything should 
separate him from an ancient, tried, and affectionate friend. 

‘ But hoAv can it be helped, man ? ’ said David, twisting his 
features into a sort of smile — ‘ how can Ave help it ? I troAv ye 
canna tell me that. Ye maun leave that to ither folk — to the 
Duke of Argyle and me, Reuben. It’s a gude thing to hae 
friends in this Avarld; hoAv muckle better to hae an interest 
beyond it ! ’ And David, Avhose piety, though not always quite 
rational, was as sincere as it Avas habitual and fervent, looked 
reverentially upAA^ard, and paused. 

Mr. Butler intimated the pleasure with which he would receive 
his friend’s advice on a subject so important, and David resumed. 

‘What think ye now, Reuben, of a kirk — a regular kirk 
under the present establishment ? Were sic offered to ye, wad 
ye be free to accept it, and under Avhilk provisions? I am 
speaking but by way of query.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


443 


Butler replied, ‘That if such a prospect were held out to 
him, he would probably first consult whether he was likely to 
be useful to the parish he should be called to ; and if there 
appeared a fair prospect of his proving so, his friend must be 
aware that, in every other point of view, it would be highly 
advantageous for him.’ 

‘Bight, Beuben — very right, lad,’ answered the monitor, 
‘ your ain conscience is the first thing to be satisfied ; for how 
sail* he teach others that has himsell sae ill learned the Scrip- 
tures as to grip for the lucre of foul earthly preferment, sic as 
gear and manse, money and victual, that which is not his in a 
spiritual sense; or wha makes his kirk a stalking-horse, from 
behind which he may tak aim at his stipend ? But I look for 
better things of you ; and specially ye maun be minded not to 
act altogether on your ain judgment, for therethrough comes 
sair mistakes, backslidings, and defections on the left and on 
the right. If there were sic a day of trial put to you, Beuben, 
you, who are a young lad, although it may be ye are gifted wi’ 
the carnal tongues, and those w^hilk were spoken at Borne, 
whilk is now the seat of the scarlet abomination, and by the 
Greeks, to whom the Gospel was as foolishness, yet natheless 
ye may be entreated by your weel-wisher to take the counsel 
of those prudent and resolved and weather-withstanding pro- 
fessors wha hae kenn’d what it was to lurk on banks and in 
1 mosses, in bogs and in caverns, and to risk the peril of the 
head rather than renunce the honesty of the heart.’ 

Butler replied, ‘ That certainly, possessing such a friend as 
he hoped and trusted he had in the goodman himself, who had 
seen so many changes in the preceding century, he should be 
much to blame if he did not avail himself of his experience and 
friendly counsel.’ 

‘Eneugh said — eneugh said, Beuben,’ said David Deans, 
with internal exultation ; ‘ and say that ye were in the predica- 
ment whereof I hae spoken, of a surety I would deem it my 
duty to gang to the root o’ the matter, and lay bare to you the 
ulcers and imposthumes, and the sores and the leprosies, of 
this our time, crying aloud and sparing not.’ 

David Deans was now in his element. He commenced his 
examination of the doctrines and belief of the Christian Church 
with the very Culdees, from whom he passed to John Knox; 
from John Knox to the recusants in James the Sixth’s time — 
Bruce, Black, Blair, Livingstone; from them to the brief, and 
at length triumphant, period of the Presbyterian Church’s 


444 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


splendour, until it was overrun by the English Independents. 
Then followed the dismal times of Prelacy, the indulgences, 
seven in number, with all their shades and bearings, until he 
arrived at the reign of King James the Second, in which he 
himself had been, in his own mind, neither an obscure actor 
nor an obscure sufferer. Then was Butler doomed to hear the 
most detailed and annotated edition of what he had so often , 
heard before — David Deans’s confinement, namely, in the iron 
cage in the Canongate tolbooth, and the cause thereof. 

We should be very unjust to our friend David Deans if we 
should ‘ pretermit,’ to use his own expression, a narrative which 
he held essential to his fame. A drunken trooper of the Royal 
Guards, Francis Gordon by name, had chased five or six of the 
skulking Whigs, among whom was our friend David ; and after 
he had compelled them to stand, and was in the act of brawling 
with them, one of their number fired a pocket-pistol and shot 
him dead. David used to sneer and shake his head when any 
one asked him whether he had been the instrument of removing 
this wicked persecutor from the face of the earth. In fact, the 
merit of the deed lay between him and his friend, Patrick 
Walker, the pedlar, whose works he was so fond of quoting. 
Neither of them cared directly to claim the merit of silencing 
Mr. Francis Gordon of the Life Guards, there being some wild 
cousins of his about Edinburgh, who might have been even yet 
addicted to revenge, but yet neither of them chose to disown 
or yield to the other the merit of this active defence of their 
religious rights. David said, that if he had fired a pistol then, 
it was what he never did after or before. And as for Mr. 
Patrick Walker, he has left it upon record that his great 
surprise was that so small a pistol could kill so big a man. | 
These are the words of that venerable biographer, whose trade 
had not taught him by experience that an inch was as good as j 
an ell : ‘ He (Francis Gordon) got a shot in his head out of ' 
a pocket-pistol, rather fit for diverting a boy than killing such i 
a furious, mad, brisk man, which notwithstanding killed him 
dead ! ’ * 

Upon the extensive foundation which the history of the kirk 
afforded, during its short-lived triumph and long tribulation, 
David, with length of breath and of narrative which would 
have astounded any one but a lover of his daughter, proceeded 
to lay down his own rules for guiding the conscience of his 
friend as an aspirant to serve in the ministry. Upon this 

* See Death of Francis Gordon. Note 35. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


445 


subject the good man went through such a variety of nice and 
casuistical problems, supposed so many extreme cases, made the 
distinctions so critical and nice betwixt the right hand and the 
left hand, betwixt compliance and defection, holding back and 
stepping aside, slipping and stumbling, snares and errors, that at 
length, after having limited the path of truth to a mathematical 
line, he was brought to the broad admission that each man’s 
conscience, after he had gained a certain view of the difficult 
navigation wffiich he was to encounter, would be the best guide 
for his pilotage. He stated the examples and arguments for 
and against the acceptance of a kirk on the present revolution 
model with much more impartiality to Butler than he had been 
able to place them before his own view. And he concluded, 
that his young friend ought to think upon these things, and be 
guided by the voice of his own conscience, whether he could 
take such an awful trust as the charge of souls, without doing 
injury to his own internal conviction of what is right or wrong. 

When David had finished his very long harangue, which 
was only interrupted by monosyllables, or little more, on the 
part of Butler, the orator himself was greatly astonished to find 
that the conclusion at which he very naturally wished to arrive 
seemed much less decisively attained than when he had argued 
the case in his own mind. 

In this particular David’s current of thinking and speaking 
only illustrated the very important and general proposition 
concerning the excellence of the publicity of debate. For, under 
the influence of any partial feeling, it is certain that most men 
can more easily reconcile themselves to any favourite measure 
when agitating it in their own mind than when obliged to 
expose its merits to a third party, when the necessity of seem- 
ing impartial procures for the opposite arguments a much more 
fair statement than that wdiich he affords it in tacit meditation. 
Having finished what he had to say, David thought himself 
obliged to be more explicit in point of fact, and to explain that 
this was no hypothetical case, but one on which, by his own 
influence and that of the Duke of Argyle, Reuben Butler would 
soon be called to decide. 

It was even with something like apprehension that David 
Deans heard Butler announce, in return to this communication, 
that he would take that night to consider on what he had said 
with such kind intentions, and return him an answer the next 
morning. The feelings of the father mastered David on this 
occasion. He pressed Butler to spend the evening with him. 


446 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


He produced, most unusual at his meals, one, nay, two bottles 
of aged strong ale. He spoke of his daughter — of her merits, 
her housewifery, her thrift, her affection. He led Butler so 
decidedly up to a declaration of his feelings towards Jeanie, 
that, before nightfall, it was distinctly understood she was to 
be the bride of Reuben Butler ; and if they thought it indelicate 
to abridge the period of deliberation which Reuben had stipu- 
lated, it seemed to be sufficiently understood betwixt them 
that there was a strong probability of his becoming minister of 
Knocktarlitie, providing the congregation Avere as wdlling to 
accept of him as the Duke to grant him the presentation. 
The matter of the oaths, they agreed, it was time enough to 
dispute about whenever the shibboleth should be tendered. 

Many arrangements were adopted that evening, which were 
afterwards ripened by correspondence with the Duke of Argyle’s 
man of business, who entrusted Deans and Butler with the 
benevolent wish of his principal that they should all meet with 
Jeanie, on her return from England, at the Duke’s hunting- 
lodge in Roseneath. 

This retrospect, so far as the placid loves of Jeanie Deans 
and Reuben Butler are concerned, forms a full explanation of 
the preceding narrative up to their meeting on the island as 
already mentioned. 


CHAPTER XLIV 


‘ I come, ’ he said, ‘ my love, my life. 

And — nature’s dearest name — my wife. 

Thy father’s house and friends resign. 

My home, my friends, my sire, are thine.’ 

Logan. 

The meeting of Jeanie and Butler, under circumstances promis- 
ing to crown an affection so long delayed, was rather affecting 
from its simple sincerity than from its uncommon vehemence 
of feeling. David Deans, whose practice was sometimes a little 
different from his theory, appalled them at first by giving them 
the opinion of sundry of the suffering preachers and champions 
of his younger days, that marriage, though honourable by the 
laws of Scripture, was yet a state over-rashly coveted by pro- 
fessors, and specially by young ministers, whose desire, he said, 
was at whiles too inordinate for kirks, stipends, and wives, 
w'hich had frequently occasioned over -ready compliance with 
the general defections of the times. He endeavoured to make 
them aware also, that hasty wedlock had been the bane of many 
a savoury professor ; that the unbelieving wife had too often 
reversed the text, and perverted the believing husband ; that 
when the famous Donald Cargill, being then hiding in Lee Wood, 
in Lanarkshire, it being ‘ killing time,’ did, upon importunity, 
marry Robert Marshal of Starry Shaw, he had thus expressed 
himself : ‘ What hath induced Robert to marry this woman ? 
Her ill will overcome his good ; he will not keep the way long : 
his thriving days are done.’ To the sad accomplishment of 
Ayhich prophecy David said he was himself a living witness, for 
Robert Marshal, having fallen into foul , compliances with the 
enemy, went home, and heard the curates, declined into other 
steps of defection, and became lightly esteemed. Indeed, he 
observed that the great upholders of the standard, Cargill, 
Peden, Cameron, and Renwick, had less delight in tying the 
bonds of matrimony than in any other piece of their ministerial 


448 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


work ; and although they would neither dissuade the parties 
nor refuse their office, they considered the being called to it as 
an evidence of indifference on the part of those between whom 
it was solemnised to the many grievous things of the day. 
Notwithstanding, however, that marriage was a snare unto 
many, David was of opinion, as, indeed, he had showed in his 
practice, ‘ that it was in itself honourable, especially if times 
were such that honest men could be secure against being shot, 
hanged, or banished, and had ane competent livelihood to main- 
tain themselves and those that might come after them. And, 
therefore,’ as he concluded something abruptly, addressing 
Jeanie and Butler, who, with faces as high-coloured as crimson, ' 
had been listening to his lengthened argument for and against 
the holy state of matrimony, ‘ I will leave ye to your ain cracks.’ 

As their private conversation, however interesting to them- 
selves, might probably be very little so to the reader, so far as 
it respected their present feelings and future prospects, we shall 
pass it over, and only mention the information which Jeanie 
received from Butler concerning her sister’s elopement, which 
contained many particulars that she had been unable to extract 
from her father. 

Jeanie learned, therefore, that for three days after her pardon 
had arrived, Effie had been the inmate of her father’s house at 
St. Leonard’s ; that the interviews betwixt David and his 
erring child which had taken place before she was liberated 
from prison had been touching in the extreme ; but Butler 
could not suppress his opinion that, when he was freed from 
the apprehension of losing her in a manner so horrible, her 
father had tightened the bands of discipline, so as, in some 
degree, to gall the feelings and aggravate the irritability of a 
spirit naturally impatient and petulant, and now doubly so from 
the sense of merited disgrace. 

On the third night, Effie disappeared from St. Leonard’s, 
leaving no intimation whatever of the route she had taken, i 
Butler, however, set out in pursuit of her, and with much 
trouble traced her towards a little landing-place, formed by a 
small brook which enters the sea betwixt Musselburgh and 
Edinburgh. This place, which has been since made into a small 
harbour, surrounded by many villas and lodging-houses, is now 
teiTQed Portobello. At this time it was surrounded by a waste 
common, covered with furze, and unfrequented, save by fishing- 
boats, and now and then a smuggling lugger. A vessel of this 
description had been hovering in the firth at the time of Effie’s 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


449 


elopement, and, as Butler ascertained, a boat had come ashore 
in the evening on which the fugitive had disappeared, and had 
carried on board a female. As the vessel made sail immediately, 
and landed no part of their cargo, there seemed little doubt 
that they were accomplices of the notorious Robertson, and that 
the vessel had only come into the Firth to carry off his par- 
amour. 

This was made clear by a letter which Butler himself soon 
afterwards received by post, signed ‘E. D.,’ but without bearing 
any date of place or time. It was miserably ill written and 
spelt; sea-sickness having apparently aided the derangement 
of Effie’s very irregular orthography and mode of expression. 
In this epistle, however, as in all that that unfortunate girl 
said or did, there was something to praise as well as to blame. 
She said in her letter, ‘That she could not endure that her 
father and her sister should go into banishment, or be partakers 
of her shame ; that if her burden was a heavy one, it was of 
her own binding, and she had the more right to bear it alone ; 
that in future they could not be a comfort to her, or she to 
them, since every look and word of her father put her in mind 
of her transgression, and was like to drive her mad ; that she 
had nearly lost her judgment during the three days she was 
at St. Leonard’s : her father meant weel by her, and all men, 
but he did not know the dreadful pain he gave her in casting 
up her sins. If Jeanie had been at hame, it might hae dune 
better; Jeanie was ane, like the angels in heaven, that rather 
weep for sinners than reckon their transgressions. But she 
should never see Jeanie ony mair, and that was the thought 
that gave her the sairest heart of a’ that had come and gane 
yet. On her bended knees would she pray for Jeanie, night 
and day, baith for what she had done and what she had scorned 
to do in her behalf ; for what a thought would it have been to 
her at that moment o’ time, if that upright creature had made 
a fault to save her ! She desired her father w^ould give Jeanie 
a’ the gear — her ain {i.e. Effie’s) mother’s and a’. She had made 
a deed giving up her right, and it was in Mr. Novit’s hand. 
Warld’s gear was henceforw^ard the least of her care, nor was 
it likely to be muckle her mister. She hoped this would make 
it easy for her sister to settle’; and immediately after this 
expression, she wished Butler himself all good things, in return 
for his kindness to her. ‘ For herself,’ she said, ‘ she kenn’d her 
lot would be a waesome ane, but it was of her own framing, sae 
she desired the less pity. But, for her friends’ satisfaction, she 

29 


VII 


450 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


wished them to know that she was gaun nae ill gate ; that they 
who had done her maist wrong were now willing to do her what 
justice was in their power; and she would, in some warldly 
respects, be far better off than she deserved. But she desired 
her family to remain satisfied with this assurance, and give 
themselves no trouble in making further inquiries after her.’ 

To David Deans and to Butler this letter gave very little 
comfort; for what was to be expected from this unfortunate 
girl’s uniting her fate to that of a character so notorious as 
Robertson, who they readily guessed was alluded to in the last 
sentence, excepting that she should become the partner and 
victim of his future crimes'? Jeanie, who knew George Staunton’s 
character and real rank, saw her sister’s situation under a ray 
of better hope. She augured well of the haste he had shown 
to reclaim his interest in Effie, and she trusted he had made 
her his wife. If so, it seemed improbable that, with his expected 
fortune and high connexions, he should again resume the life 
of criminal adventure which he had led, especially since, as 
matters stood, his life depended upon his keeping his own secret, 
which could only be done by an entire change of his habits, 
and particularly by avoiding all those who had known the heir 
of Willingham under the character of the audacious, criminal, 
and condemned Robertson. 

She thought it most likely that the couple would go abroad 
for a few years, and not return to England until the affair of 
Porteous was totally forgotten. Jeanie, therefore, saw more 
hopes for her sister than Butler or her father had been able to 
perceive; but she was not at liberty to impart the comfort 
which she felt in believing that she would be secure from 
the pressure of poverty, and in little risk of being seduced into 
the paths of guilt. She could not have explained this without 
making public what it was essentially necessary for Effie’s chance 
of comfort to conceal, the identity, namely, of George Staunton 
and George Robertson. After all, it was dreadful to think 
that Effie had united herself to a man condemned for felony, 
and liable to trial for murder, whatever might be his rank in 
life, and the degree of his repentance. Besides, it was melan- 
choly to reflect that, she herself being in possession of the 
whole dreadful secret, it was most probable he would, out of 
regard to his own feelings and fear for his safety, never again 
permit her to see poor Effie. After perusing and re-perusing 
her sister’s valedictory letter, she gave ease to her feelings in a 
flood of tears, which Butler in vain endeavoured to check by 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


451 


every soothing attention in his power. She was obliged, how- 
ever, at length to look up and wipe her eyes, for her father, 
thinking he had allowed the lovers time enough for conference, 
was now advancing towards them from the Lodge, accompanied 
by the Captain of Knockdunder, or, as his friends called him 
for brevity’s sake, Duncan Knock, a title which some youthful 
exploits had rendered peculiarly appropriate. 

This Duncan of Knockdunder was a person of first-rate im- 
portance in the island* of Roseneath and the continental 
parishes of Knocktarlitie, Kilmun, and so forth; nay, his in- 
fluence extended as far as Cowall, where, however, it was 
obscured by that of another factor. The Tower of Knock- 
dunder still occupies, with its remains, a cliff overhanging the 
Holy Loch. Duncan swore it had been a royal castle ; if so, it 
was one of the smallest, the space within only forming a square 
of sixteen feet, and bearing therefore a ridiculous proportion to 
the thickness of the walls, which was ten feet at least. Such 
as it was, however, it had long given the title of Captain, 
equivalent to that of Chatelain, to the ancestors of Duncan, 
who were retainers of the house of Argyle, and held a heredi- 
tary jurisdiction under them, of little extent indeed, but which 
had great consequence in their own eyes, and was usually 
administered with a vigour somewhat beyond the law. 

The present representative of that ancient family was a 
stout short man about fifty, whose pleasure it was to unite in 
his own person the dress of the Highlands and Lowlands, 
wearing on his head a black tie-wig, surmounted by a fierce 
cocked hat, deeply guarded with gold lace, while the rest of 
his dress consisted of the plaid and philabeg. Duncan super- 
intended a district which was partly Highland, partly Lowland, 
and therefore might be supposed to combine their national 
habits, in order to show his impartiality to Trojan or Tyrian. 
The incongruity, however, had a whimsical and ludicrous effect, 
as it made his head and body look as if belonging to different 
individuals ; or, as some one said who had seen the executions 
of the insurgent prisoners in 1715, it seemed as if some Jacobite 
enchanter, having recalled the sufferers to life, had clapped, 
in his haste, an Englishman’s head on a Highlander’s body. 
To finish the portrait, the bearing of the gracious Duncan was 
brief, bluff, and consequential, and the upward turn of his short 
copper-coloured nose indicated that he was somewhat addicted 
to wrath and usquebaugh. 

* This is, more correctly speaking, a peninsula (Laing). 


452 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


When this dignitary had advanced up to Butler and to J eanie, 
‘I take the freedom, Mr. Deans,’ he said, in a very conse- 
quential manner, ‘to salute your daughter, whilk I presume 
this young lass to be. I kiss every pretty girl that comes to 
Roseneath, in virtue of my office.’ Having made this gallant 
speech, he took out his quid, saluted J eanie with a hearty smack, 
and bade her welcome to Argyle’s country. Then addressing 
Butler, he said, ‘Ye maun gang ower and meet the carle 
ministers yonder the morn, for they will want to do your job ; 
and synd it down with usquebaugh doubtless : they seldom 
make dry wark in this kintra.’ 

‘ And the Laird ’ said David Deans, addressing Butler in 

further explanation. 

‘ The Captain, man,’ interrupted Duncan ; ‘ folk winna ken 
wha ye are speaking aboot, unless ye gie shentlemens their 
proper title.’ 

‘ The Captain, then,’ said David, ‘ assures me that the call 
is unanimous on the part of the parishioners — a real harmonious 
call, Reuben.’ 

‘I pelieve,’ said Duncan, ‘it was as harmonious as could 
pe expected, when the tae half o’ the bodies were clavering 
Sassenach and the t’other skirling Gaelic, like sea -maws and 
clack-geese before a storm. Ane wad hae needed the gift of 
tongues to ken preceesely what they said ; but I pelieve the 
best end of it was, “Long live MacCallummore and Knock- 
dunder ! ” And as to its being an unanimous call, I wad be glad 
to ken fat business the carles have to call ony thing or ony body 
but what the Duke and mysell likes ! ’ 

‘ Nevertheless,’ said Mr. Butler, ‘ if any of the parishioners 
have any scruples, which sometimes happen in the mind of 
sincere professors, I should be happy of an opportunity of trying 
to remove ’ 

‘ Never fash your peard about it, man,’ interrupted Duncan 
Knock. ‘ Leave it a’ to me. Scruple ! deil ane o’ them has been 
bred up to scruple ony thing that they’re bidden to do. And if 
sic a thing suld happen as ye speak o’, ye sail see the sincere 
professor, as ye ca’ him, towed at the stern of my boat for a few 
furlongs. I’ll try if the water of the Haly Loch winna wash off 
scruples as weel as fleas. Cot tarn ! ’ 

The rest of Duncan’s threat was lost in a growling gurgling 
sort of sound which he made in his throat, and which menaced 
recusants with no gentle means of conversion. David Deans 
would certainly have given battle in defence of the right of the 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


453 


Christian congregation to be consulted in the choice of their 
own pastor, which, in his estimation, was one of the choicest 
and most inalienable of their privileges ; but he had again 
engaged in close conversation with Jeanie, and, with more 
interest than he was in use to take in affairs foreign alike to his 
occupation and to his religious tenets, was inquiring into the 
particulars of her London journey. This was, perhaps, fortunate 
for the new-formed friendship betwixt him and the Captain of 
Knockdunder, which rested, in David’s estimation, upon the 
proofs he had given of his skill in managing stock; but, in 
reality, upon the special charge transmitted to Duncan from 
the Duke and his agent to behave with the utmost attention 
to Deans and his family. 

‘ And now, sirs,’ said Duncan, in a commanding tone, ‘ I am 
to pray ye a’ to come in to your supper, for yonder is Mr. 
Archibald half famished, and a Saxon woman, that looks as if 
her een were fleeing out o’ her head wi’ fear and wonder, as if 
she had never seen a shentleman in a philabeg pefore.’ 

‘And Reuben Butler,’ said David, ‘will doubtless desire 
instantly to retire, that he may prepare his mind for the 
exercise of to-morrow, that his work may suit the day, and be 
an offering of a sweet savour in the nostrils of the reverend 
presbytery.’ 

‘ Hout tout, man, it’s but little ye ken about them,’ inter- 
rupted the Captain. ‘ Teil a ane o’ them wad gie the savour 
of the hot venison pasty which I smell (turning his squab 
nose up in the air) a’ the way frae the Lodge, for a’ that Mr. 
Butler, or you either, can say to them.’ 

David groaned; but judging he had to do with a Gallio, as 
he said, did not think it worth his while to give battle. They 
followed the Captain to the house, and arranged themselves 
with great ceremony round a well-loaded supper-table. The 
only other circumstance of the evening worthy to be recorded 
is, that Butler pronounced the blessing; that Knockdunder 
found it too long, and David Deans censured it as too short ; 
from which the charitable reader may conclude it was exactly 
the proper length. 


CHAPTER XLV 


Now turn the Psalms of David ower 
And lilt wi’ holy clangor ; 

Of double verse come gie us four 
And skirl up the Bangor. 

Burns. 

The next was the important day when, according to the forms 
and ritual of the Scottish Kirk, Reuben Butler was to be 

ordained minister of Knocktarlitie by the presbytery of . 

And so eager were the whole party, that all, excepting Mrs. 
Dutton, the destined Cowslip of Inverary, were stirring at an 
early hour. 

Their host, whose appetite was as quick and keen as his 
temper, was not long in summoning them to a substantial 
breakfast, where there were at least a dozen of different pre- 
parations of milk, plenty of cold meat, scores boiled and roasted 
eggs, a huge cag of butter, half a firkin herrings boiled and 
broiled, fresh and salt, and tea and coffee for them that liked 
it, which, as their landlord assured them, with a nod and a 
wink, pointing at the same time to a little cutter which seemed 
dodging under the lee of the island, cost them little beside the 
fetching ashore. 

‘Is the contraband trade permitted here so openly?’ said 
Butler. ‘ I should think it very unfavourable to the people’s 
morals.’ 

‘ The Duke, Mr. Putler, has gien nae orders concerning the 
putting of it down,’ said the magistrate, and seemed to think 
that he had said all that was necessary to iustify his con- 
nivance. 

Butler was a man of prudence, and aware that real good 
can only be obtained by remonstrance when remonstrance is 
well-timed; so for the present he said nothing more on the 
subject. 

When breakfast was half over, in flounced Mrs. Dolly, as 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 455 

fine as a blue sacque and cherry-coloured ribbands could make 
her. 

‘Good morrow to you, madam,’ said the master of cere- 
monies ; ‘ I trust your early rising will not scaith ye.’ 

The dame apologised to Captain Knockunder, as she was 
pleased to term their entertainer; ‘but, as we say in Cheshire,’ 
she added, ‘ I Avas like the mayor of Altringham, who lies in 
bed Avhile his breeches are mending, for the girl did not bring 
up the right bundle to my room till she had brought up all 
the others by mistake one after t’other. Well, I suppose Ave 
are all for church to-day, as I understand. Pray may I be so 
bold as to ask if it is the fashion for you North -Country 
gentlemen to go to church in your petticoats. Captain Knock- 
under ? ’ 

‘ Captain of Knockdunder, madam, if you please, for I 
knock under to no man ; and in respect of my garb, I shall go 
to church as I am, at your service, madam ; for if I Avere to lie 
in bed, like your Major What-d’ye-callum, till my preeches 
were mended, I might be there all my life, seeing I never had 
a pair of them on my person but tAvice in my life, Avhich I am 
pound to remember, it peing Avhen the Duke brought his 
Duchess here, when her Grace pehoved to be pleasured ; so I 
e’en porrowed the minister’s treAvs for the tA\’a days his Grace 
Avas pleased to stay ; but I Avill put myself under sic confine- 
ment again for no man on earth, or Avoman either, but her 
Grace being ahvays excepted, as in duty pound.’ 

The mistress of the milking -pail stared, but, making no 
answer to this round declaration, immediately proceeded to 
shoAV that the alarm of the preceding evening had in no degree 
injured her appetite. 

When the meal Avas finished, the Captain proposed to them 
to take boat, in order that Mistress Jeanie might see her new 
place of residence, and that he himself might inquire Avhether 
the necessary preparations had been made there and at the 
manse for receiving the future inmates of these mansions. 

The morning was delightful, and the huge mountain-shadows 
slept upon the mirrored wave of the firth, almost as little dis- 
turbed as if it had been an inland lake. Even Mrs. Dutton’s 
fears no longer annoyed her. She had been informed by 
Archibald that there was to be some sort of junketting after 
the sermon, and that Avas what she loved dearly ; and as for the 
Avater, it Avas so Still that it would look quite like a pleasuring 
on the Thames. 


456 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


The whole party being embarked, therefore, in a large boat, 
which the Captain called his coach and six, and attended by a 
smaller one termed his gig, the gallant Duncan steered straight 
upon the little tower of the old-fashioned church of Knock tarlitie, 
and the exertions of six stout rowers sped them rajDidly on their 
voyage. As they neared the land, the hills appeared to recede 
from them, and a little valley, formed by the descent of a small 
river from the mountains, evolved itself as it were upon their 
approach. The style of the country on each side was simply 
pastoral, and resembled, in appearance and character, the descrip- \ 
tion of a forgotten Scottish poet, which runs nearly thus : — | 

The water gently down a level slid, 

With little din, hut couthy what it made ; 

On ilka side the trees grew thick and lang. 

And wi’ the wild birds’ notes were a’ in sang ; 

On either side, a full bow -shot and mair. 

The green was even, gowany, and fair ; 

With easy slope on every hand the braes 
To the hills’ feet with scattered bushes raise ; 

With goats and sheep aboon, and kye below. 

The bonny banks all in a swarm did go. * 

They landed in this Highland Arcadia, at the mouth of the 
small stream wdiich w^atered the delightful and peaceable valley. 
Inhabitants of several descriptions came to pay their “respects 
to the Captain of Knockdunder, a homage which he was very 
peremptory in exacting, and to see the new settlers. Some of 
these were men after David Deans’s own heart, elders of the 
kirk-session, zealous professors, from the Lennox, Lanarkshire, 
and Ayrshire, to whom the preceding Duke of Argyle had given 
‘rooms’ in this corner of his estate, because they had suffered for 
joining his father, the unfortunate Earl, during his ill-fated 
attempt in 1686. These were cakes of the right leaven for 
David regaling himself with ; and, had it not been for this cir- 
cumstance, he has been heard to say, ‘that the Captain of 
Knockdunder would have swore him out of the country in 
twenty-four hours, sae awsome it was to ony thinking soul to 
hear his imprecations, upon the slightest temptation that crossed 
his humour.’ 

Besides these, there were a wilder set of parishioners, moun- 
taineers from the upper glen and adjacent hill, who spoke 
Gaelic, went about armed, and wore the Highland dress. But 
the strict commands of the Duke had established such good 

* Ross’s Fortunate Shepherdess. Edit. 1778, p. 23. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


457 


order in this part of his territories, that the Gael and Saxons 
lived upon the best possible terms of good neighbourhood. 

They first visited the manse, as the parsonage is termed in 
Scotland. It was old, but in good repair, and stood snugly 
embosomed in a grove of sycamore, with a well-stocked garden 
in front, bounded by the small river, which was partly visible 
from the windows, partly concealed by the bushes, trees, and 
-bounding hedge. Within, the house looked less comfortable 
than it might have been, for it had been neglected by the late 
incumbent ; but workmen had been labouring under the direc- 
tions of the Captain of Knockdunder, and at the expense of the 
Duke of Argyle, to put it into some order. The old ‘ plenish- 
ing ’ had been removed, and neat but plain household furniture 
had been sent down by the Duke in a brig of his own, called 
the ‘ Caroline,’ and was now ready to be placed in order in the 
apartments. 

The gracious Duncan, finding matters were at a stand 
among the workmen, summoned before him the delinquents, 
and impressed all who heard him with a sense of his authority 
by the penalties with which he threatened them for their delay. 
Mulcting them in half their charge, he assured them, would be 
the least of it ; for, if they were to neglect his pleasure and the 
Duke’s, ‘ he would be tamn’d if he paid them the t’other half 
either, and they might seek law for it where they could get 
it.’ The work-people humbled themselves before the offended 
dignitaiy, and spake him soft and fair ; and at length, upon Mr. 
Butler recalling to his mind that it was the ordination-day, 
and that the Avorkmen were probably thinking of going to 
church, Knockdunder agreed to forgive them, out of respect to 
their new minister. 

‘ But an I catch them neglecking my duty again, Mr. Butler, 
the teil pe in me if the kirk shall be an excuse ; for what has 
the like o’ them rapparees to do at the kirk ony day put Sun- 
days, or then either, if the Duke and I has the necessitous uses 
for them ? ’ 

It may be guessed with what feelings of quiet satisfaction and 
delight Butler looked forward to spending his days, honoured 
and useful as he trusted to be, in this sequestered valley, 
and how often an intelligent glance was exchanged betwixt 
him and Jeanie, whose good-humoured face looked positively 
handsome, from the expression of modesty, and at the same 
time of satisfaction, which she wore when visiting the apart- 
ments of which she Avas soon to call herself mistress. She was 


458 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


left at liberty to give more open indulgence to her feelings of i 
delight and admiration when, leaving the manse, the company 1 
proceeded to examine the destined habitation of David Deans. 

Jeanie found with pleasure that it was not above a musket- 
shot from the manse ; for it had been a bar to her happiness 
to think she might be obliged to reside at a distance from herj 
father, and she was aware that there were strong objections to 
his actually living in the same house with Butler. But this! 
brief distance was the very thing which she could have wished. 

The farm-house was on the plan of an improved cottage, and 
contrived with great regard to convenience ; an excellent little 
garden, an orchard, and a set of offices complete, according to ji 
the best ideas of the time, combined to render it a most desir- 
able habitation for the practical farmer, and far superior toj 
the hovel at Woodend and the small house at St. Leonard’s; 
Crags. The situation was considerably higher than that of i 
the manse, and fronted to the west. The windows commanded | 
an enchanting view of the little vale over which the mansion 
seemed to preside, the windings of the stream, and the firth, 
with its associated lakes and romantic islands. The hills of 
Dunbartonshire, once possessed by the fierce clan of MacFar- 
lanes, formed a crescent behind the valley, and far to the right 
were seen the dusky and more gigantic mountains of Argyle- 
shire, with a seaward view of the shattered and thunder-splitten j ' 
peaks of Arran. j 

But to Jeanie, whose taste for the picturesque, if she had 1 
any by nature, had never been awakened or cultivated, the i 
sight of the faithful old May Hettly, as she opened the door to t 
receive them in her clean toy, Sunday’s russet-gown, and blue I- 
apron, nicely smoothed down before her, was worth the whole p 
varied landscape. The raptures of the faithful old creature at il 
seeing Jeanie were equal to her own, as she hastened to assure ij 
her, ‘ that baith the gudeman and the beasts had been as weel i 
seen after as she possibly could contrive.’ Separating her from f| 
the rest of the company, May then hunied her young mistress 
to the offices, that she might receive the compliments she j 
expected for her care of the cows. Jeanie rejoiced, in the I 
simplicity of her heart, to see her charge once more ; and the j 
mute favourites of our heroine, Gowans and the others, acknow- j 
ledged her presence by lowing, turning round their broad and ! 
decent brows when they heard lier well-known ‘ Pruh, my leddy | 
— pruh, my woman,’ and by various indications, known only j 
to those who have studied the habits of the milky mothers, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


459 


showing sensible pleasure as she approached to caress them in 
their turn. 

‘ The very brute beasts are glad to see ye again/ said May ; 
‘but nae wonder, Jeanie, for ye were aye kind to boast and 
body. And I maun learn to ca’ yc 7mstress now, Jeanie, since 
ye hae been up to Lunnon, and seen the Duke, and the King, 
and a’ the braw folk. But wha kens,’ added the old dame 
slyly, ‘ what I’ll hae to ca’ ye forbye mistress, for I am thinking 
it wunna lang be Deans.’ 

‘Ca’ me your ain Jeanie, May, and then ye can never gang 
wrang.’ 

In the cow-house which they examined there was one animal 
which Jeanie looked at till the tears gushed from her eyes. 
May, who had watched her with a sympathising expression, 
immediately observed, in an undertone, ‘The gudeman aye 
sorts that beast himsell, and is kinder to it than ony beast in 
the byre ; and I noticed he was that way e’en when he was 
angriest, and had maist cause to be angry. Eh, sirs ! a 
parent’s heart’s a queer thing ! Mony a warsle he has had for 
that puir lassie. I am thinking he petitions mair for her than 
for yoursell, hinny; for what can he plead for you but just to 
wish you the blessing ye deserve ? And when I sleepit ayont 
the hallan, when we came first here, he was often earnest a’ 
night, and I could hear him come ower and ower again wi’, 
“ Effie — puir blinded misguided thing ! ” it was aye “ Effie ! 
Efhe ! ” If that puir wandering lamb comena into the sheep- 
fauld in the Shepherd’s ain time, it will be an unco wonder, for 
I wot she has been a child of prayers. 0, if the puir prodigal 
wad return, sae blythely as the goodman wad kill the fatted 
calf ! — though Brockie’s calf will no be fit for killing this three 
weeks yet.’ 

And then, with the discursive talent of persons of her de- 
scription, she got once more afloat in her account of domestic 
affairs, and left this delicate and affecting topic. 

Having looked at everything in the offices and the dairy, 
and expressed her satisfaction with the manner in which matters 
had been managed in her absence, Jeanie rejoined the rest of 
the party, who were surveying the interior of the house, all 
excepting David Deans and Butler, who had gone down to the 
church to meet the kirk-session and the clergymen of the pres- 
bytery, and arrange matters for the duty of the day. 

In the interior of the cottage all was clean, neat, and suitable 
to the exterior. It had been originally built and furnished by 


460 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


the Duke as a retreat for a favourite domestic of the higher 
class, who did not long enjoy it, and had been dead only a few 
months, so that everything was in excellent taste and good 
order. But in Jeanie’s bedroom was a neat trunk, which had 
greatly excited Mrs. Dutton’s curiosity, for she was sure that 
the direction, ‘For Mrs. Jean Deans, at Auchingower, parish of 
Knocktarlitie,’ was the writing of Mrs. Semple, the Duchess’s 
own woman. May Hettly produced the key in a sealed parcel, 
which bore the same address, and attached to the key was a 
label, intimating that the trunk and its contents were ‘ a token 
of remembrance to Jeanie Deans from her friends the Duchess 
of Argyle and the young ladies.’ The trunk, hastily opened, 
as the reader will not doubt, was found to be full of wearing 
apparel of the best quality, suited to Jeanie’s rank in life ; and 
to most of the articles the names of the particular donors were 
attached, as if to make Jeanie sensible not only of the general 
but of the individual interest she had excited in the noble 
family. To name the various articles by their appropriate names 
would be to attempt things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme ; 
besides, that the old-fashioned terms of manteaus, sacques, 
kissing-strings, and so forth would convey but little information 
even to the milliners of the present day. (I shall deposit, how- 
ever, an accurate inventory of the contents of the trunk with 
my kind friend. Miss Martha Buskbody, who has promised, 
should the public curiosity seem interested in the subject, to 
supply me with a professional glossary and commentary.) Suffice 
it to say, that the gift was such as became the donors, and was 
suited to the situation of the receiver; that every thing was hand- 
some and appropriate, and nothing forgotten which belonged to 
the wardrobe of a young person in Jeanie’s situation in life, the 
destined bride of a respectable clergyman. 

Article after article was displayed, commented upon, and 
admired, to the wonder of May, who declared, ‘ she didna think 
the Queen had mair or better claise,’ and somewhat to the envy 
of the northern Cowslip. This unamiable, but not very un- 
natural, disposition of mind broke forth in sundry unfounded 
criticisms to the disparagement of the articles, as they were 
severally exhibited. But it assumed a more direct character 
when, at the bottom of all, was found a dress of white silk, very 
plainly made, but still of white silk, and French silk to boot, 
with a paper pinned to it, bearing, that it was a present from 
the Duke of Argyle to his travelling companion, to be worn on 
the day when she should change her name. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


461 


Mrs. Dutton could forbear no longer, but whispered into 
Mr. Archibald’s ear, that it was a clever thing to be a Scotch- 
woman : ‘ She supposed all her sisters, and she had half a dozen, 
might have been hanged, without any one sending her a present 
of a pocket handkerchief.’ 

‘ Or without your making any exertion to save them, Mrs. 
Dolly,’ answered Archibald, drily. ‘But I am surprised we do 
not hear the bell yet,’ said he, looking at his watch. 

‘Fat ta deil, Mr. Archibald,’ answered the Captain of Knock- 
dunder, ‘ wad ye hae them ring the bell before I am ready to 
gang to kirk? I wad gar the bedral eat the bell -rope if he 
took ony sic freedom. But if ye want to hear the bell, I will 
just show mysell on the knowe-head, and it will begin jowing 
forthwith.’ 

Accordingly, so soon as they sallied out, and the gold- 
laced hat of the Captain was seen rising like Hesper above the 
dewy verge of the rising ground, the clash — for it was rather a 
clash than a clang — of the bell was heard from the old moss- 
grown toAver, and the clapper continued to thump its cracked 
sides all the while they advanced towards the kirk, Duncan 
exhorting them to take their OAvn time, ‘ for teil ony sport wad 
be till he came.’* 

Accordingly, the bell only changed to the final and impatient 
chime Avhen they crossed the stile ; and ‘ rang in,’ that is, con- 
cluded its mistuned summons, when they had entered the 
Duke’s seat in the little kirk, where the whole party arranged 
themselves, with Duncan at their head, excepting David Deans, 
Avho already occupied a seat among the elders. 

The business of the day, Avith a particular detail of which 
it is unnecessary to trouble the reader, was gone through ac- 
cording to the established form, and the sermon pronounced 
upon the occasion had the good fortune to please even the 
critical David Deans, though it was only an hour and a 
quarter long, which David termed a short allowance of spiritual 
provender. 

The preacher, A\'ho was a divine that held many of David’s 
opinions, privately apologised for his brevity by saying, ‘ That 
he observed the Captain was gaunting grievously, and that if he 
had detained him longer, there Avas no knowing how long he 
might be in paying the next term’s victual stipend.’ 

David groaned to find that such carnal motives could have 
influence upon the mind of a powerful preacher. He had, in- 

* See Tolling to Service iu Scotland. Note 36. 


462 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


deed, been scandalised by another circumstance during the 
service. 

So soon as the congregation were seated after prayers, and 
the clergyman had read his text, the gracious Duncan, after 
rummaging the leathern purse which hung in front of his petti- 
coat, produced a short tobacco-pipe made of iron, and observed, 
almost aloud, ‘ I hae forgotten my spleuchan. Lachlan, I 
gang down to the clachan and bring me up a pennyworth 
of twist.' Six arms, the nearest within reach, presented, with | 
an obedient start, as many tobacco- pouches to the man of | 
office. He made choice of on-e with a nod of acknowledgment, jj 
filled his pipe, lighted it with the assistance of his pistol-flint, I 
and smoked with infinite composure during the whole time of 
the sermon. When the discourse was finished, he knocked the 
ashes out of his pipe, replaced it in its sporran, returned the 
tobacco pouch or spleuchan to its owner, and joined in the 
prayer with decency and attention. 

At the end of the service, when Butler had been admitted 
minister of the kirk of Knocktarlitie, with all its spiritual 
immunities and privileges, David, who had frowned, groaned, 
and murmured at Knockdunder’s irreverent demeanour, com- 
municated his plain thoughts of the matter to Isaac Meikle- 
hose, one of the elders, with whom a reverential aspect and 
huge grizzle wig had especially disposed him to seek fraternisa- 
tion. ‘ It didna become a wild Indian,’ David said, ‘ much less 
a Christian and a gentleman, to sit in the kirk puffing tobacco- 
reek, as if he were in a change-house.’ 

Meiklehose shook his head, and allowed it was ‘far frae : 
beseeming. But what will ye say? The Captain’s a queer 
hand, and to speak to him about that or ony thing else that 
crosses the maggot, wad be to set the kiln a-low. He keeps 
a high hand ower the country, and we couldna deal wi’ the 
Hielandmen without his protection, sin’ a’ the keys o’ the 
kintray hings at his belt ; and he’s no an ill body in the main, 
and maistry, ye ken, maws the meadows doun.’ 

‘That may be very true, neighbour,’ said David; ‘but 
Reuben Butler isna the man I take him to be if he disna learn j 
the Captain to fuff his pipe some other gate than in God’s | 
house or the quarter be ower.’ 

‘Fair and softly gangs far,’ said Meiklehose; ‘and if a fule ' 
may gie a wise man a counsel, I wad hae him think twice or j 
he mells wi’ Knockdunder. He suld hae a lang-shankit spune : 
that wad sup kail wi’ the deil. But they are a’ away to their 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


463 


dinner to the change-house, and if we dinna mend our pace, 
we’ll come short at meal-time.’ 

David accompanied his friend without answer; but began 
to feel from experience that the glen of Knocktarlitie, like the 
rest of the world, was haunted by its own special subjects of 
regret and discontent. His mind was so much occupied by 
considering the best means of converting Duncan of Knock to 
a sense of reverent decency during public worship, that he 
altogether forgot to inquire whether Butler was called upon to 
subscribe the oaths to government. 

Some have insinuated that his neglect on this head was, in 
some degree, intentional ; but I think this explanation incon- 
sistent with the simplicity of my friend David’s character. 
Neither have I ever been able, by the most minute inquiries, 
to know whether the formula at which he so much scrupled 
had been exacted from Butler, aye or no. The books of the 
kirk-session might have thrown some light on this matter; but 
unfortunately they were destroyed in the year 1746, by one 
Donacha Dhu na Dunaigh, at the instance, it was said, or at 
least by the connivance, of the gracious Duncan of Knock, who 
had a desire to obliterate the recorded foibles of a certain Kate 
Finlay son. 


CHAPTER XLVI 


Now butt and ben the cliange-liouse fills 
Wi’ yill-caup commentators ; 

Here’s crying out for bakes and gills, 

And there the pint-stoup clatters. 

While thick and thrang, and loud and lang, 

Wi’ logic and wi’ Scripture, 

They raise a din that in the end 
Is like to breed a rupture 

O’ wrath that day. 

Burns. 

A PLENTIFUL entertainment, at the Duke of Argyle’s cost, regaled 
the reverend gentlemen who had assisted at the ordination of |j 
Reuben Butler, and almost all the respectable part of the parish. 
The feast was, indeed, such as the country itself furnished ; for I 
plenty of all the requisites for ‘ a rough and round ’ dinner were | 
always at Duncan of Knock’s command. There was the beef 
and mutton on the braes, the fresh and saltwater fish in the 
lochs, the brooks, and firth ; game of every kind, from the deer ^ 
to the leveret, were to be had for the killing in the Duke’s 
forests, moors, heaths, and mosses ; and for liquor, home-brewed ; 
ale flowed as freely as water ; brandy and usquebaugh both 
were had in those happy times without duty ; even white wine ,[ 
and claret were got for nothing, since the Duke’s extensive 
rights of admiralty gave him a title to all the wine in cask | 
which is drifted ashore on the western coast and isles of Scot- | 
land, when shipping have suffered by severe weather. In short, I 
as Duncan boasted, the entertainment did not cost MacCallum- 
more a plack out of his sporran, and was nevertheless not only 
liberal, but overflowing. i 

The Duke’s health was solemnised in a hona fide bumper, j 
and David Deans himself added perhaps the first huzza that !i 
his lungs had ever uttered to swell the shout with which the i 
pledge was received. Nay, so exalted in heart was he upon ! 
this memorable occasion, and so much disposed to be indulgent, ’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


465 


that he expressed no dissatisfaction when three bagpipers struck 
up, ‘ The Campbells are coming.’ The health of the reverend 
minister of Knocktarlitie was received with similar honours; 
and there was a roar of laughter when one of his brethren slyly 
subjoined the addition of, ‘A good wife to our brother, to keep 
the manse in order.’ On this occasion David Deans was delivered 
of his first-born joke ; and apparently the parturition was ac- 
companied with many throes, for sorely did he twist about his 
physiognomy, and much did he stumble in his speech, before 
he could express his idea, ‘ That the lad being now wedded to 
his spiritual bride, it was hard to threaten him with ane temporal 
spouse in the same day.’ He then laughed a hoarse and brief 
laugh, and was suddenly grave and silent, as if abashed at his 
own vivacious effort. 

After another toast or two, Jeanie, Mrs. Dolly, and such of 
the female natives as had honoured the feast with their presence, 
retired to David’s new dwelling at Auchingower, and left the 
gentlemen to their potations. 

The feast proceeded with great glee. The conversation, 
wliere Duncan had it under his direction, was not indeed always 
strictly canonical, but David Deans escaped any risk of being 
scandalised by engaging with one of his neighbours in a recapitu- 
lation of the sufferings of Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, during 
what was called the invasion of the Highland Host ; the prudent 
Mr. Meiklehose cautioning them from time to time to lower 
their voices, for ‘ that Duncan Knock’s father had been at that 
onslaught, and brought back muckle gude plenishing, and that 
Duncan was no unlikely to hae been there himself, for what he 
kenn’d.’ 

Meanwhile, as the mirth grew fast and furious, the graver 
members of the party began to escape as well as they could. 
David Deans accomplished his retreat, and Butler anxiously 
watched an opportunity to follow him. Knockd under, however, 
desirous, he said, of knowing what stuff was in the new minister, 
had no intention to part with him so easily, but kept him pinned 
to his side, watching him sedulously, and with obliging violence 
filling his glass to the brim as often as he could seize an oppor- 
tunity of doing so. At length, as the evening was wearing late, 
a venerable brother chanced to ask Mr. Archibald when they 
might hope to see the Duke, tarn carum caput^ as he would 
venture to term him, at the Lodge of Roseneath. Duncan of 
Knock, whose ideas were somewhat conglomerated, and who, it 
may be believed, was no great scholar, catching up some im- 

30 


VII 


466 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


perfect sound of the words, conceived the speaker was drawing 
a parallel between the Duke and Sir Donald Gorme of Sleat ; 
and being of opinion that such comparison was odious, snorted 
thrice, and prepared himself to be in a passion. 

To the explanation of the venerable divine the Captain an- 
swered, ‘ I heard the word “ Gorme ” myself, sir, with my ain 
ears. D’ye think I do not know Gaelic from Latin ? ’ 

‘Apparently not, sir,’ so the clergyman, offended in his 
turn, and taking a pinch of snuff, answered with great coolness. 

The copper nose of the gracious Duncan now became heated 
like the bull of Phalaris, and while Mr. Archibald mediated 
betwixt the offended parties, and the attention of the company 
was engaged by their dispute, Butler took an opportunity to 
effect his retreat. 

He found the females at Auchingower very anxious for the 
breaking up of the convivial party ; for it was a part of the 
arrangement that, although David Deans was to remain at 
Auchingower, and Butler was that night to take possession of 
the manse, yet Jeanie, for whom complete accommodations 
were not yet provided in her father’s house, was to return for a 
day or two to the Lodge at Roseneath, and the boats had been 
held in readiness accordingly. They waited, therefore, for 
Knockdunder’s return, but twilight came and they still waited 
in vain. At length Mr. Archibald, -who, as a man of decorum, 
had taken care not to exceed in his conviviality, made his 
appearance, and advised the females strongly to return to the 
island under his escort; observing that, from the humour in 
which he had left the Captain, it was a great chance whether 
he budged out of the public -house that night, and it was 
absolutely certain that he would not be very fit company for 
ladies. The gig was at their disposal, he said, and there was 
still pleasant twilight for a party on the water. 

Jeanie, who had considerable confidence in Archibald’s pru- 
dence, immediately acquiesced in this proposal ; but Mrs. Dolly 
positively objected to the small boat. If the big boat could 
be gotten, she agreed to set out, otherwise she would sleep on 
the floor, rather than stir a step. Reasoning with Dolly was 
out of the question, and Archibald did not think the difficulty 
so pressing as to require compulsion. He observed, ‘ It was not 
using the Captain very politely to deprive him of his coach 
and six; but as it was in the ladies’ service,’ he gallantly 
said, ‘ he would use so much freedom ; besides, the gig would 
serve the Captain’s purpose better, as it could come off at any 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 467 

hour of the tide ; the large boat should, therefore, be at Mrs. 
Dolly’s service.’ 

They walked to the beach accordingly, accompanied by 
Butler. It was some time before the boatmen could be as- 
sembled, and ere they were well embarked, and ready to 
depart, the pale moon was come over the hill, and flinging 
a trembling reflection on the broad and glittering waves. But 
so soft and pleasant was the night, that Butler, in bidding 
farewell to Jeanie, had no apprehension for her safety; and, 
what is yet more extraordinary, Mrs. Dolly felt no alarm for 
her own. The air was soft, and came over the cooling wave 
with something of summer fragrance. The beautiful scene of 
headlands, and capes, and bays around them, with the broad 
blue chain of mountains, was dimly visible in the moonlight ; 
while every dash of the oars made the waters glance and 
sparkle with the brilliant phenomenon called the sea fire. 

This last circumstance filled Jeanie with wonder, and served 
to amuse the mind of her companion, until they approached 
the little bay, which seemed to stretch its dark and wooded 
arms into the sea as if to welcome them. 

The usual landing-place was at a quarter of a mile’s distance 
from the Lodge, and although the tide did not admit of the 
large boat coming quite close to the jetty of loose stones which 
served as a pier, Jeanie, who was both bold and active, easily 
sprung ashore; but Mrs. Dolly positively refusing to commit 
herself to the same risk, the complaisant Mr. Archibald ordered 
the boat round to a more regular landing-place, at a consider- 
able distance along the shore. He then prepared to land him- 
self, that he might, in the meanwhile, accompany Jeanie to 
the Lodge. But as there was no mistaking the woodland lane 
which led from thence to the shore, and as the moonlight 
showed her one of the white chimneys rising out of the wood 
which embosomed the building, Jeanie declined this favour 
with thanks, and requested him to proceed with Mrs. Dolly, 
who, being ‘ in a country where the ways were strange to her, 
had mair need of countenance.’ 

This, indeed, was a fortunate circumstance, and might even 
be said to save poor Cowslip’s life, if it was true, as she herself 
used solemnly to aver, that she must positively have expired 
for fear if she had been left alone in the boat with six wild 
Highlanders in kilts. 

The night was so exquisitely beautiful that Jeanie, instead 
of immediately directing her course towards the Lodge, stood 


468 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


looking after the boat as it again put off from the side, and 
rowed out into the little bay, the dark figures of her companions 
growing less and less distinct as they diminished in the distance, 
and the jorram, or melancholy boat-song, of the rowers coming 
on the ear with softened and sweeter sound, until the boat 
rounded the headland and was lost to her observation. 

Still Jeanie remained in the same posture, looking out iipon 
the sea. It would, she was aware, be some time ere her com- 
panions could reach the Lodge, as the distance by the more 
convenient landing-place was considerably greater than from 
the point where she stood, and she was not sorry to have an 
opportunity to spend the interval by herself. 

The wonderful change which a few weeks had wrought in 
her situation, from shame and grief, and almost despair, to 
honour, joy, and a fair prospect of future happiness, passed 
before her eyes with a sensation which brought the tears into 
them. Yet they flowed at the same time from another source. 
As human happiness is never perfect, and as well-constructed 
minds are never more sensible of the distresses of those whom 
they love than when their own situation forms a contrast with 
them, Jeanie’s affectionate regrets turned to the fate of her poor 
sister — the child of so many hopes, the fondled nursling of so 
many years — now an exile, and, what was worse, dependent on 
the Avill of a man of whose habits she had every reason to 
entertain the worst opinion, and who, even in his strongest 
paroxysms of remorse, had appeared too much a stranger to the 
feelings of real penitence. 

While her thoughts Avere occupied with these melancholy 
reflections, a shadowy figure seemed to detach itself from the 
copsewood on her right hand. Jeanie started, and the stories 
of apparitions and wraiths, seen by solitary travellers in wild 
situations, at such times and in such an hour, suddenly came 
full upon her imagination. The figure glided on, and as it 
came betwixt her and the moon, she was aware that it had the 
appearance of a woman. A soft voice twice repeated, ‘ Jeanie — 
Jeanie!’ Was it indeed — could it be the voice of her sister? 
Was she still among the living, or had the grave given up its 
tenant ? Ere she could state these questions to her own mind, 
Effie, alive and in the body, had clasped her in her arms, and 
Avas straining her to her bosom and devouring her Avith kisses. 
‘ I have Avandered here,’ she said, ‘ like a ghaist, to see you, and 
nae Avonder you take me for ane. I thought but to see you gang 
by, or to hear the sound of your voice ; but to speak to your- 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 469 

sell again, Jeanie, was mair than I deserved, and mair than I 
durst pray for.’ 

‘ 0, Effie ! how came ye here alone, and at this hour, and on 
the Avild sea-beach? Are you sure it’s your ain living sell?’ 

There was something of Effie’s former humour in her practi- 
cally answering the qiiestion by a gentle pinch, more beseeming 
the fingers of a fairy than of a ghost. 

And again the sisters embraced, and laughed, and wept by 
turns. 

‘But ye maun gang up wi’ me to the Lodge, Effie,’ said 
J eanie, ‘ and tell me a’ your story. I hae glide folk there that 
will make ye welcome for my sake.’ 

‘ Na, na, Jeanie,’ replied her sister, sorrowfully; ‘ye hae 
forgotten what I am — a banished outlawed creature, scarce 
escaped the galloivs by your being the bauldest and the best 
sister that ever lived. I’ll gae near nane o’ your grand friends, 
even if there was nae danger to me.’ 

‘ There is nae danger — there shall be nae danger,’ said 
J eanie, eagerly. ‘ 0, Effie, dinna be wilfu’ : be guided for anes ; 
Ave Avill be sae happy a’ thegither ! ’ 

‘ I have a’ the happiness I deserve on this side of the grave, 
now that I hae seen you,’ answered Effie; ‘and Avhether there 
were danger to mysell or no, naebody shall ever say that I come 
with my cheat-the-galloAvs face to shame my sister amang her 
grand friends.’ 

‘I hae nae grand friends,’ said Jeanie; ‘nae friends but 
Avhat are friends of yours — Reuben Butler and my father. 0, 
unhappy lassie, dinna be dour, and turn your back on your 
happiness again ! We Avunna see another acquaintance. Come 
hame to us, your ain dearest friends ; it’s better sheltering 
under an auld hedge than under a new-planted Avood.’ 

‘ It’s in vain speaking, Jeanie : I maun drink as I hae breAved. I 
am married, and I maun follow my husband for better for worse.’ 

‘Married, Effie!’ exclaimed Jeanie. ‘Misfortunate creature! 
and to that awfu’ ’ 

‘ Hush, hush ! ’ said Effie, clapping one hand on her mouth, 
and pointing to the thicket with the other ; ‘ he is yonder.’ She 
said this in a tone which showed that her husband had found 
means to inspire her with aAve as well as affection. 

At this moment a man issued from the wood. It Avas young 
Staunton. Even by the imperfect light of the moon, Jeanie 
could observe that he was handsomely dressed, and had the air 
of a person of rank. 


470 


WAVEULEY NOVELS 


‘Effie,’ he said, ‘our time is wellnigh spent; the skiff will 
be aground in the creek, and I dare not stay longer. I hope 
your sister will allow me to salute her?’ But Jeanie shrunk 
back from him with a feeling of internal abhorrence. ‘Well,’ 
he said, ‘ it does not much signify ; if you keep up the feeling 
of ill-will, at least you do not act upon it, and I thank you for 
your respect to my secret, when a word — which in your place I 
would have spoken at once — would have cost me my life. People 
say you should keep from the wife of your bosom the secret 
that concerns your neck : my wife and her sister both know 
mine, and I shall not sleep a wink the less sound.’ 

‘ But are you really married to my sister, sir ? ’ asked Jeanie, 
in great doubt and anxiety ; for the haughty, careless tone in 
which he spoke seemed to justify her worst apprehensions. 

‘ I really am legally married, and by my own name,’ replied 
Staunton, more gravely. 

‘ And your father — and your friends ? ’ 

‘ And my father and my friends must just reconcile them- 
selves to that which is done and cannot be undone,’ replied 
Staunton. ‘ However, it is my intention, in order to break off 
dangerous connexions, and to let my friends come to their 
temper, to conceal my marriage for the present, and stay abroad 
for some years. So that you will not hear of us for some time, 
if ever you hear of us again at all. It would be dangerous, you 
must be aware, to keep up the coiTespondence ; for all would 
guess that the husband of Efhe was the — what shall I call my- 
self ? — the slayer of Porteous.’ 

‘ Hard-hearted, light man ! ’ thought Jeanie ; ‘ to what a char- 
acter she has entrusted her happiness ! She has sown the wind, 
and maun reap the whirlwind.’ 

‘ Dinna think ill o’ him,’ said Effie, breaking away from her 
husband, and leading Jeanie a step or two out of hearing — 
‘dinna think very ill o’ him; he’s gude to me, Jeanie — as gude 
as I deserve. And he is determined to gie up his bad courses. 
Sae, after a’, dinna greet for Effie ; she is better off than she 
has wrought for. But you — 0 you ! — how can you be happy 
eneugh ! Never till ye get to Heaven, where a’body is as gude 
as yoursell. Jeanie, if I live and thrive ye shall hear of me ; 
if not, just forget that sic a creature ever lived to vex ye. Fare 
ye weel — fare — fare ye weel ! ’ 

She tore herself from her sister’s arms ; rejoined her husband ; 
they plunged into the copsewood, and she saw them no more. 

The whole scene had the effect of a vision, and she could almost 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


471 


have believed it such, but that very soon after they quitted her 
she heard the sound of oars, and a skiff was seen on the firth, 
pulling swiftly towards the small smuggling sloop which lay in 
the offing. It was on board of such a vessel that Effie had 
embarked at Portobello, and Jeanie had no doubt that the same 
conveyance was destined, as Staunton had hinted, to transport 
them to a foreign country. 

Although it was impossible to determine whether this inter- 
view, while it was passing, gave more pain or pleasure to Jeanie 
Deans, yet the ultimate impression which remained on her mind 
was decidedly favourable. Effie was married — made, according 
to the common phrase, an honest woman ; that was one main 
point. It seemed also as if her husband were about to abandon 
the path of gross vice, in which he had run so long and so 
desperately ; that was another ; for his final and effectual 
conversion, he did not want understanding, and God knew His 
own hour. 

Such were the thoughts with which Jeanie endeavoured 
i to console her anxiety respecting ' her sister’s future fortune. 

I On her arrival at the Lodge, she found Archibald in some 
1 anxiety at her stay, and about to walk out in quest of her. A 
headache served as an apology for retiring to rest, in order to 
conceal her visible agitation of mind from her companions. 

By this secession also, she escaped another scene of a different 
sort. For, as if there were danger in all gigs, whether by sea or 
land, that of Knockdunder had been run down by another boat, 
an accident owing chiefly to the drunkenness of the Captain, his 
crew, and passengers. Knockdunder, and two or three guests 
"whom he was bringing along with him to finish the conviviality 
of the evening at the Lodge, got a sound ducking ; but, being 
rescued by the crew of the boat which endangered them, there 
, was no ultimate loss, excepting that of the Captain’s laced hat, 
which, greatly to the satisfaction of the Highland part of the 
district, as well as to the improvement of the conformity of his 
own personal appearance, he replaced by a smart Highland 
bonnet next day. Many were the vehement threats of venge- 
ance which, on the succeeding morning, the gracious Duncan 
threw out against the boat which had upset him ; but as neither 
i she nor the small smuggling vessel to which she belonged was 
any longer to be seen in the firth, he was compelled to sit down 
i with the affront. This was the more hard, he said, as he was 
assured the mischief was done on purpose, these scoundrels 
i having lurked about after they had landed every drop of brandy 


472 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


and every bag of tea tliey had on board ; and he understood 
the coxswain had been on shore making particular inquiries 
concerning the time when his boat was to cross over, and to 
return, and so forth. 

‘ Put the neist time they meet me on the firth,’ said Duncan, 
with great majesty, ‘ I will teach the moonlight rapscallions and 
vagabonds to keep their ain side of the road, and be tamn’d to 


them ! ’ 



I 

I 


CHAPTER XLVII 


Lord ! who would live turmoiled in a court, 

And may enjoy such quiet walks as these ? 

Shakspeare. 

Within a reasonable time after Butler was safely and comfort- 
ably settled in his living, and Jeanie had taken up her abode at 
Auchingower with her father — the precise extent of which 
interval we request each reader to settle according to his own 
sense of what is decent and proper upon the occasion — and 
after due proclamation of banns and all other formalities, the 
long wooing of this worthy pair was ended by their union in the 
holy bands of matrimony. On this occasion, David Deans 
stoutly withstood the iniquities of pipes, fiddles, and promiscu- 
ous dancing, to the great wrath of the Captain of Knockdunder, 
who said, if he ‘ had guessed it was to be sic a tamn’d Quakers’ 
meeting, he w^ad hae seen them peyont the cairn before he wad 
hae darkened their doors.’ 

And so much rancour remained on the spirits of the gracious 
Duncan upon this occasion, that various ‘ picqueerings,’ as David 
called them, took place upon the same and similar topics ; and 
it was only in consequence of an accidental visit of the Duke 
to his Lodge at Roseneath that they were put a stop to. But 
upon that occasion his Grace showed such particular respect to 
Mr. and Mrs. Butler, and such favour even to old David, that 
Knockdunder held it prudent to change his course towards the 
latter. He in future used to express himself among friends 
concerning the minister and his wife, as ‘ very worthy decent 
folk, just a little over strict in their notions ; put it was pest 
for thae plack cattle to err on the safe side.’ And respecting 
David, he allowed that ‘ he was an excellent judge of nowte and 
sheep, and a sensible eneugh carle, an it werena for his tamn’d 
Cameronian nonsense, whilk it is not worth while of a shentleman 
to knock out of an auld silly head, either by force of reason or 


474 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


otherwise.’ So that, by avoiding topics of dispute, the person- 
ages of our tale lived in great good habits with the gracious 
Duncan, only that he still grieved David’s soul, and set a peril- 
ous example to the congregation, by sometimes bringing his 
pipe to the church during a cold winter day, and almost always 
sleeping during sermon in the summer-time. 

Mrs. Butler, whom ^ve must no longer, if we can help it, term 
by the familiar name of Jeanie, brought into the married state 
the same firm mind and affectionate disposition, the same natural 
and homely good sense, and spirit of useful exertion — in a word, 
all the domestic good qualities of which she had given proof 
during her maiden life. She did not indeed rival Butler in 
learning; but then no woman more devoutly venerated the 
extent of her husband’s erudition. She did not pretend to 
understand his expositions of divinity ; but no minister of the 
presbytery had his humble dinner so w^ell arranged, his clothes 
and linen in equal good order, his fireside so neatly swept, his 
parlour so clean, and his books so well dusted. 

If he talked to Jeanie of what she did not understand — and 
(for the man was mortal, and had been a schoolmaster) he 
sometimes did harangue more scholarly and wisely than was 
necessary — she listened in placid silence ; and whenever the 
point referred to common life, and was such as came under the 
grasp of a strong natural understanding, her views Avere more 
forcible, and her observations more acute, than his own. In 
acquired politeness of manners, when it happened that she 
mingled a little in society, Mrs. Butler Avas, of course, judged 
deficient. But then she had that obvious wish to oblige, and 
that real and natural good-breeding depending on good sense 
and good -humour, Avhich, joined to a considerable degree of 
archness and liveliness of manner, rendered her behaviour ac- 
ceptable to all with whom she Avas called upon to associate. 
NotAvithstanding her strict attention to all domestic affairs, she 
always appeared the clean well-dressed mistress of the house, 
never the sordid household drudge. When complimented on 
this occasion by Duncan Knock, Avho swore, ‘ that he thought 
the fairies must help her, since her house was always clean, and 
nobody ever saw anybody sweeping it,’ she modestly replied, 

‘ That much might be dune by timing ane’s turns.’ 

Duncan replied, ‘ He heartily wished she could teach that art 
to the huzzies at the Lodge, for he could never discover that 
the house was washed at a’, except noAv and then by breaking 
his shins over the pail. Cot tamn the jauds ! ’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


475 


Of lesser matters there is not occasion to speak much. It 
may easily be believed that the Duke’s cheese was carefully 
made, and so graciously accepted that the offering became 
annual. Remembrances and acknowledgments of past favours 
were sent to Mrs. Bickerton and Mrs. Glass, and an amicable 
intercourse maintained from time to time with these two re- 
spectable and benevolent persons. 

It is especially necessary to mention that, in the course of 
five years, Mrs. Butler had three children, two boys and a girl, 
all stout healthy babes of grace, fair- haired, blue -eyed, and 
strong-limbed. The boys were named David and Reuben, an 
order of nomenclature which was much to the satisfaction of 
the old hero of the Covenant, and the girl, by her mother’s 
special desire, was christened Euphemia, rather contrary to the 
wish both of her father and husband, who nevertlieless loved 
Mrs. Butler too well, and were too much indebted to her for 
their hours of happiness, to withstand any request which she 
made with earnestness, and as a gratification to herself. But 
from some feeling, I know not of what kind, the child was 
never distinguished by the name of Effie, but by the abbrevia- 
tion of Femie, which in Scotland is equally commonly applied 
to persons called Euphemia. 

In this state of quiet and unostentatious enjoyment there 
were, besides the ordinary rubs and ruffles which disturb even 
the most uniform life, two things which particularly chequered 
Mrs. Butler’s happiness. ‘Without these,’ she said to our 
informer, ‘her life would have been but too happy; and per- 
haps,’ she added, ‘she had need of some crosses in this world to 
remind her that there was a better to come behind it.’ 

The first of these related to certain polemical skirmishes 
betwixt her father and her husband, which, notwithstanding 
the mutual respect and affection they entertained for each 
other, and their great love for her ; notwithstanding also their 
general agreement in strictness, and even severity, of Presby- 
terian principle, often threatened unpleasant weather between 
them. David Deans, as our readers must be aware, was suffi- 
ciently opinionative and intractable, and having prevailed on 
himself to become a member of a kirk-session under the estab- 
lished church, he felt doubly obliged to evince that, in so doing, 
he had not compromised any whit of his former professions, 
either in practice or principle. Now Mr. Butler, doing all 
credit to his father-in-law’s motives, was frequently of opinion 
that it were better to drop out of memory points of division 


476 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


and separation, and to act in the manner most likely to attract 
and unite all parties who Avere serious in religion. Moreover, 
he was not pleased, as a man and a scholar, to he always 
dictated to by his unlettered father-in-laAV ; and as a clergyman 
he did not think it fit to seem for ever under the thumb of an 
elder of his own kirk-session. A proud but honest thought 
carried his opposition now and then a little farther than it 
would otherwise have gone. ‘My brethren,’ he said, ‘will 
suppose I am flattering and conciliating the old man for the 
sake of his succession, if I defer and give way to him on every 
occasion ; and, besides, there are many on which I neither can 
nor will conscientiously yield to his notions. I cannot be 
persecuting old women for witches, or ferreting out matter of 
scandal among the young ones, Avhich might otherwise have 
remained concealed.’ 

From this difference of opinion it happened that, in many 
cases of nicety, such as in owning certain defections, and failing 
to testify against certain backslidings of the time ; in not always 
severely tracing forth little matters of scandal and fama 
clamosa, Avhich David called a loosening of the reins of discipline; 
and in failing to demand clear testimonies in other points of 
controversy which had, as it were, drifted to leeward with the 
change of times, Butler incurred the censure of his father-in- 
law; and sometimes the disputes betwixt them became eager 
and almost unfriendly. In all such cases Mrs. Butler was a 
mediating spirit, who endeavoured, by the alkaline smoothness 
of her own disposition, to neutralise the acidity of theological 
controversy. To the complaints of both she lent an unpre- 
judiced and attentive ear, and sought always rather to excuse 
than absolutely to defend the other party. 

She reminded her father that Butler had not ‘ his experience 
of the auld and wrastling times, when folk were gifted Avi’ a far 
look into eternity, to make up for the oppressions Avhilk they 
suffered here beloAv in time. She freely alloAved that many 
devout ministers and professors in times past had enjoyed 
doAvnright revelation, like the blessed Peden, and Lundie, and 
Cameron, and Renwick, and John Caird the tinkler, Avha en- 
tered into the secrets ; and Elizabeth Melvil, Lady Culross, Avha 
prayed in her bed, surrounded by a great many Christians in a 
large room, in whilk it Avas placed on purpose, and that for 
three hours’ time, with wonderful assistance ; and Lady Robert- 
land, Avhilk got six sure outgates of grace ; and mony other in 
times past ; and of a specialty, ]\Ir. J ohn Scrimgeour, minister 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


477 


1 of Kinghorn, who, having a beloved child sick to death of the 
' crewels, was free to expostulate with his Maker with such 
impatience of displeasure, and complaining so bitterly, that at 
; length it was said unto him that he was heard for this time, 

’ but that he was requested to use no such boldness in time 
coming ; so that, when he returned, he found the child sitting 
' up in the bed hale and fair, with all its wounds closed, and 
supping its parritch, whilk babe he had left at the time of 
death. But though these things might be true in these need- 
ful times, she contended that those ministers who had not 
seen such vouchsafed and especial mercies were to seek their 
. rule in the records of ancient times ; and therefore Reuben was 
carefu’ both to search the Scriptures and the books written by 
I wise and good men of old ; and sometimes in this way it wad 
happen that twa precious saints might pu’ sundry wise, like 
! twa cows riving at the same hay-band.’ 

To this David used to reply, with a sigh, ‘ Ah, hinny, thou 
; kenn’st little o’t; but that saam John Scrimgeour, that blew 
i open the gates of Heaven as an it had been wi’ a sax-pund 
i cannon-ball, used devoutly to wish that most part of books 
were burnt, except the Bible. Beuben’s a glide lad and a kind 
— I have aye allowed that ; but as to his not allowing inquiry 
anent the scandal of Margery Kittlesides and Rory MacRand, 
under pretence that they have southered sin wi’ marriage, it’s 
clear agane the Christian discipline o’ the kirk. And then 
there’s Ailie MacClure of Deepheugh, that practises her abomina- 
; tions, spaeing folks’ fortunes wi’ egg-shells, and mutton-banes, 
i and dreams and divinations, whilk is a scandal to ony Christian 
1 land to suffer sic a wretch to live ; and I’ll uphaud that in a’ 
judicatures, civil or ecclesiastical.’ 

' ‘ I daresay ye are very right, father,’ was the general style 

fj of Jeanie’s answer; ‘but ye maun come down to the manse to 
i your dinner the day. The bits o’ bairns, puir things, are weary- 
j ing to see their luckie-dad ; and Reuben never sleeps weel, nor I 
I neither, when you and he hae had ony bit outcast.’ 

) ‘Nae outcast, Jeanie; God forbid I suld cast out wi’ thee, 
t or aught that is dear to thee ! ’ And he put on his Sunday’s 
coat and came to the manse accordingly. 

With her husband, Mrs. Butler had a more direct conciliatory 
process. Reuben had the utmost respect for the old man’s 
. motives, and affection for his person, as well as gratitude for 
! his early friendship ; so that, upon any such occasion of acci- 
dental irritation, it was only necessary to remind him with 

i 

I 


478 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


delicacy of his father-in-law’s age, of his scanty education, strong | 
prejudices, and family distresses. The least of these considera- || 
tions always inclined Butler to measures of conciliation, in so j 
far as he could accede to them without compromising principle ; 
and thus pur simple and unpretending heroine had the merit of 
those peacemakers to whom it is pronounced as a benediction j 
that they shall inherit the eart-h. i 

The second crook in Mrs. Butler’s lot, to use the language : 
of her father, was the distressing circumstance that she had ! 
never heard of her sister’s safety, or of the circumstances in ; 
which she found herself, though betwixt four and five years had ! 
elapsed since they had parted on the beach of the island of i 
Roseneath. Frequent intercourse was not to be expected — not ' 
to be desired, perhaps, in their relative situations; but Effie ; 
had promised tW, if she lived and prospered, her sister should i 
hear from her. She must then be no more, or sunk into some : 
abyss of misery, since she had never redeemed her pledge. , 
Her silence seemed strange and portentous, and wrung from | 
Jeanie, who could never forget the early years of their intimacy, i 
the most painful anticipation concerning her fate. At length, 
however, the veil was drawn aside. ! 

One day, as the Captain of Knockdunder had called in at ! 
the manse, on his return from some business in the Highland 
part of the parish, and had been accommodated, according to i 
his special request, with a mixture of milk, brandy, honey, and : 
water, which he said Mrs. Butler compounded ‘ petter than ever 
a woman in Scotland ’ — for in all innocent matters she studied i 
the taste of every one around her — he said to Butler, ‘ Py the 
py, minister, I have a letter here either for your canny pody of , 
a wife or you, which I got when I was last at Glasco ; the 
postage comes to fourpence, which you may either pay me ] 
forthwith, or give me tooble or quits in a hit at packcammon.’ 

The playing at backgammon and draughts had been a . 
frequent amusement of Mr. Whackbairn, Butler’s principal, : 
when at Liberton school. The minister, therefore, still piqued i 
himself on his skill at both games, and occasionally practised 
them, as strictly canonical, although David Deans, whose notions , 
of every kind were more rigorous, used to shake his head and i 
groan grievously when he espied the tables lying in the parlour, 
or the children playing with the dice-boxes or backgammon 
men. Indeed, Mrs. Butler was sometimes chidden for removing 
these implements of pastime into some closet or corner out of 
sight. ‘Let them be where they are, Jeanie,’ would Butler 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


479 


say upon such occasions ; ‘ I am not conscious of following this 
or any other trifling relaxation to the interruption of my more 
serious studies and still more serious duties. I will not, there- 
fore, have it supposed that I am indulging by stealth, and 
against my conscience, in an amusement which, using it so 
little as I do, I may well practise openly, and without any check 
of mind. Nil conscire sihi, Jeanie, that is my motto ; which 
signifies, my love, the honest and open confidence which a man 
ought to entertain when he is acting openly, and without any 
sense of doing wrong.’ 

Such being Butler’s humour, he accepted the Captain’s 
defiance to a twopenny hit at backgammon, and handed the 
letter to his wife, observing, ‘ the post-mark was York, but, if it 
came from her friend Mrs. Bickerton, she had considerably im- 
proved her handwriting, which was uncommon at her years.’ 

Leaving the gentlemen to their game, Mrs. Butler went to 
order something for supper, for Captain Duncan had proposed 
kindly to stay the night with them, and then carelessly broke 
open her letter. It was not from Mrs. Bickerton, and, after 
glancing over the first few lines, she soon found it necessary to 
retire into her own bedroom, to read the document at leisure. 


CHAPTER XLVIII 


Happy thou art ! then happy be, 

Nor envy me my lot ; 

Thy happy state I envy thee, 

And peaceful cot. 

Lady Charlotte Campbell. 

The letter, which Mrs. Butler, when retired into her own apart- 
ment, perused with anxious wonder, was certainly from Effie, 
although it had no other signature than the letter E. ; and 
although the orthography, style, and penmanship were very 
far superior not only to anything which Effie could produce, 
who, though a lively girl, had been a remarkably careless scholar, 
but even to her more considerate sister’s own powers of com- 
position and expression. The manuscript was a fair Italian 
hand, though something stiff and constrained ; the spelling and 
the diction that of a person who had been accustomed to read 
good composition, and mix in good society. 

The tenor of the letter was as follows 

‘XIy dearest Sister, 

‘ At many risks I venture to write to you, to inform you 
that I am still alive, -and, as to worldly situation, that I rank 
higher than I could expect or merit. If wealth, and distinction, 
and an honourable rank could make a woman happy, I have 
them all ; but you, Jeanie, whom the world might think placed 
far beneath me in all these respects, are far happier than I am. 
I have had means of hearing of your welfare, my dearest Jeanie, 
from time to time ; I think I should have broken my heart 
otherwise. I have learned with great pleasure of your increasing 
family. We have not been worthy of such a blessing; two 
infants have been successively removed, and we are now child- 
less — God’s will be done ! But if we had a child it would 
perhaps divert him from the gloomy thoughts which make him 
terrible to himself and others. Yet do not let me frighten you, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


481 


Jeanie ; he continues to be kind, and I am far better off than I 
deserve. You will wonder at my better scholarship ; but when 
I was abroad I had the best teachers, and I worked hard 
because my progress pleased him. He is kind, Jeanie, only he 
has much to distress him, especially when he looks backward. 
When I look backward myself I have always a ray of comfort ; 
it is in the generous conduct of a sister who forsook me not 
when I was forsaken by every one. You have had your reward. 
You live happy in’ the esteem and love of all who know you, 
and I drag on the life of a miserable impostor, indebted for the 
marks of regard I receive to a tissue of deceit and lies, which 
the slightest accident may unravel. He has produced me to 
his friends, since the estate opened to him, as the daughter of 
a Scotchman of rank, banished on account of the Viscount of 
Dundee’s wars — that is our Fr’s old friend Clavers, you know 
— and he says I was educated in a Scotch convent ; indeed, I 
I lived in such a place long enough to enable me to support the 
I character. But when a countryman approaches me, and begins 
to talk, as they all do, of the various families engaged in 
^ Dundee’s affair, and to make inquiries into my connexions, and 
: when I see his eye bent on mine with such an expression of 
1 agony, my terror brings me to the very risk of detection, 
j Good-nature and politeness have hitherto saved me, as they pre- 
I vented people from pressing on me with distressing questions. 

1 But how long — 0 how long will this be the case ! And if I 
bring this disgrace on him, he will hate me ; he will kill me, 
for as much as he loves me ; he is as jealous of his family 
honour now as ever he was careless about it. I have been in 
England four months, and have often thought of writing to 
you ; and yet such are the dangers that might arise from an 
intercepted letter that I have hitherto forborne. But now I 
am obliged to run the risk. Last week I saw your great friend, 
the D. of A. He came to my box, and sate by me ; and some- 
thing in the play put him in mind of you. Gracious Heaven ! 
he told over your whole London journey to all who were in the 
box, but particularly to the wretched creature who was the 
I occasion of it all. If he had known— if he could have con- 
ceived, beside whom he was sitting, and to whom the story 
was told ! I suffered with courage, like an Indian at the stake, 
while they are rending his fibres and boring his eyes, and while 
he smiles applause at each well -imagined contrivance of his 
torturers. It was too much for me at last, J eanie : I fainted ; 
and my agony was imputed partly to the heat of the place, and 

31 


VII 


482 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


partly to my extreme sensibility; and, hypocrite all over, I 
encouraged both opinions — anything but discovery ! Luckily 
he was not there. But the incident has led to more alarms. 
I am obliged to meet your great man often ; and he seldom 
sees me without talking of E. D. and J. D., and R. B. and 
D. D., as persons in whom my amiable sensibility is interested. 
My amiable sensibility ! ! ! And then the cruel tone of light 
indilference with which persons in the fashionable world speak 
together on the most affecting subjects ! To hear my guilt, 
my folly, my agony, the foibles and weaknesses of my friends, 
even your heroic exertions, Jeanie, spoken of in the drolling 
style which is the present tone in fashionable life ! Scarce all 
that I formerly endured is equal to this state of irritation : 
then it was blows and stabs ; now it is pricking to death with 
needles and pins. He — I mean the D. — goes down next month 
to spend the shooting-season in Scotland. He says he makes a 
point of always dining one day at the manse; be on your 
guard, and do not betray yourself, should he mention me. 
Yourself — alas ! you have nothing to betray — nothing to fear ; 
you, the pure, the virtuous, the heroine of unstained faith, 
unblemished purity, what can you have to fear from the world 
or its proudest minions ? It is E. whose life is once more in 
your hands ; it is E. whom you are to save from being plucked 
of her borrowed plumes, discovered, branded, and trodden down 
— first by him, perhaps, who has raised her to this dizzy 
pinnacle. The inclosure will reach you twice a-year. Do not 
refuse it ; it is out of my own allowance, and may be twice as 
much when you want it. With you it may do good ; with me 
it never can. 

‘Write to me soon, Jeanie, or I shall remain in the agonis- 
ing apprehension that this has fallen into wrong hands. Ad- 
dress simply to “ L. S.,” under cover to the Reverend George 
Whiterose, in the Minster Close, York. He thinks I correspond 
with some of my noble Jacobite relations who are in Scotland. 
How High Church and Jacobitical zeal w^ould burn in his cheeks 
if he knew he was the agent, not of Euphemia Setoun, of the 
honourable house of Winton, but of E. D., daughter of a Camer- 
onian cow-feeder ! Jeanie, I can laugh yet sometimes — but God 
protect you from such mirth. My father — I mean your father 
— would say it was like the idle crackling of thorns; but 
the thorns keep their poignancy, they remain unconsumed. 
Farewell, my dearest Jeanie. Do not show this even to Mr. 
Butler, much less to any one else. I have every respect for 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


483 


him ; but his principles are over strict, and my case will not 
endure severe handling. — I rest your affectionate sister, E.’ 

In this long letter there was much to surprise as well as to 
distress Mrs. Butler. That Effie— her sister Effie— should be 
mingling freely in society, and apparently on not unequal terms 
with the Duke of Argyle, sounded like something so extra- 
ordinary that she even doubted if she read truly. Nor was it 
less marvellous that, in the space of four years, her education 
should have made such progress. Jeanie’s humility readily 
allovred that Effie had always, when she chose it, been smarter 
at her book than she herself was ; but then she Avas very idle, 
and, upon the whole, had made much less proficiency. Love, or 
fear, or necessity, however, had proved an able schoolmistress, 
and completely supplied all her deficiencies. 

What Jeanie least liked in the tone of the letter was a 
smothered degree of egotism. ‘We should have heard little 
about her,’ said Jeanie to herself, ‘but that she was feared the 
Duke might come to learn wha she Avas, and a’ about her puir 
friends here.; but Effie, puir thing, aye looks her ain Avay, 
and folk that do that think mair o’ themselves than of their 
neighbours. I am no clear about keeping her siller,’ she added, 
taking up a £50 note Avhich had fallen out of the paper to the 
floor. ‘We hae eneugh, and it looks unco like theft-boot, or 
hush-money, as they ca’ it ; she might hae been sure that I wad 
say naething Avad harm her, for a’ the gowd in Lunnon. And 
I I maun tell the minister about it. I dinna see that she suld be 
: sae feared for her ain bonny bargain o’ a gudeman, and that I 
shouldna reverence Mr. Butler just as much ; and sae I’ll e’en tell 
him Avhen that tippling body, the Captain, has ta’en boat in the 
morning. But I Avonder at my ain state of mind,’ she added, 
turning back, after she had made a step or tAvo to the door to 
join the gentlemen; ‘surely I am no sic a fule as to be angry 
that Effie’s a braAv lady, Avhile I am only a minister’s wife ? and 
yet I am as petted as a bairn, Avhen I should bless God, that 
has redeemed her from shame, and poverty, and guilt, as OAver 
likely she might hae been plunged into.’ 

Sitting doAvn upon a stool at the foot of the bed, she folded 
her arms upon her bosom, saying Avithin herself, ‘From this place 
' Avill I not rise till I am in a better frame of mind ’ ; and so 
1 placed, by dint of tearing the veil from the motives of her little 
temporary spleen against her sister, she compelled herself to be 
ashamed of them, and to vieAv as blessings the advantages of 




484 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


her sister’s lot, while its embarrassments were the necessary 
consequences of errors long since committed. And thus she 
fairly vanquished the feeling of pique which she naturally enough 
entertained at seeing Effie, so long the object of her care and 
her pity, soar suddenly so high above her in life as to reckon 
amongst the chief objects of her apprehension the risk of their 
relationship being discovered. 

When this unwonted burst of amour propre was thoroughly ^ 
subdued, she walked dowm to the little parlour where the 
gentlemen were finishing their game, and heard from the | 
Captain a confirmation of the news intimated in her letter, that 
the Duke of Argyle was shortly expected at Roseneath. « 

‘ He’ll find plenty of moor-fowls and plack-cock on the moors 
of Auchingower, and he’ll pe nae doubt for taking a late dinner \ 
and a ped at the manse, as he has done pefore now.’ 

‘He has a gude right. Captain,’ said Jeanie. j! 

‘ Teil ane petter to ony ped in the kintra,’ answered the !: 
Captain. ‘ And ye had petter tell your father, puir body, to get !; 
his beasts a’ in order, and put his tamn’d Cameronian nonsense ! 
out o’ his head for twa or three days, if he can pe so opliging ; : 
for fan I speak to him apout prute pestial, he answers me out I 
o’ the Pible, whilk is not using a shentleman weel, unless it be j 
a person of your cloth, Mr. Putler.’ ( 

No one understood better than Jeanie the merit of the soft I 
answer which turneth away wrath ; and she only smiled, and 
hoped that his Grace would find everything that was under her 
father’s care to his entire satisfaction. 

But the Captain, who had lost the whole postage of the letter 
at backgammon, was in the pouting mood not unusual to losers, 
and which, says the proverb, must be allowed to them. ; 

‘ And, Master Putler, though you know I never meddle with | 
the things of your kirk-sessions, yet I must pe allowed to say \ 
that I will not pe pleased to allow Ailie MacClure of Deepheugh ! 
to pe poonished as a witch, in respect she only spaes fortunes, , 
and does not lame, or plind, or pedevil any persons, or coup 
cadgers’ carts, or ony sort of mischief ; put only tells people 
good fortunes, as anent our poats killing so many seals and I 
doug-fishes, whilk is very pleasant to hear.’ 

‘ The woman,’ said Butler, ‘ is, I believe, no witch, but a ! 
cheat ; and it is only on that head that she is summoned to the ! 
kirk-session, to cause her to desist in future from practising her I 
impostures upon ignorant persons.’ 

‘ I do not know,’ replied the gracious Duncan, ‘ what her 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


485 


practices or her postures are, but I pelieve that if the poys take 
hould on her to duck her in the clachan purn, it will be a very 
so^y practice ; and I pelieve, moreover, that if I come in 
thirdsman among you at the kirk-sessions, you will be all in a 
tamn’d pad posture indeed.’ 

Without noticing this threat, Mr. Butler replied, ‘ That he 
had not attended to the risk of ill-usage which the poor woman 
might undergo at the hands of the rabble, and that he would 
give her the necessary admonition in private, instead of bringing 
her before the assembled session.’ 

‘ This,’ Duncan said, ‘ was speaking like a reasonable shen tie- 
man ’ ; and so the evening passed peaceably off. 

Next morning, after the Captain had swallowed his morning 
draught of Athole brose, and departed in his coach and six, 
Mrs. Butler anew deliberated upon communicating to her 
husband her sister’s letter. But she was deterred by the 
recollection that, in doing so, she would unveil to him the 
whole of a dreadful secret, of which, perhaps, his public character 
might render him an unfit depository. Butler already had 
reason to believe that Effie had eloped with that same Robertson 
who had been a leader in the Porteous mob, and who lay under 
sentence of death for the robbery at Kirkcaldy. But he did not 
■ know his identity with George Staunton, a man of birth and 
fortune, who had now apparently reassumed his natural rank in 
society. Jeanie had respected Staunton’s own confession as 
sacred, and upon reflection she considered the letter of her sister 
as equally so, and resolved to mention the contents to no one. 

On reperusing the letter, she could not help observing the 
staggering and unsatisfactory condition of those who have risen 
to distinction by undue paths, and the outworks and bulwarks 
of fiction and falsehood by which they are under the necessity 
of surrounding and defending their precarious advantages. But 
she was not called upon, she thought, to unveil her sister’s 
original history : it would restore no right to any one, for she 
was usurping none ; it would only destroy her happiness, and 
degrade her in the public estimation. Had she been wise, Jeanie 
thought she would have chosen seclusion and privacy, in place 
of public life and gaiety ; but the pow'er of choice might not be 
hers. The money, she thought, could not be returned without 
her seeming haughty and unkind. She resolved, therefore, upon 
reconsidering this point, to employ it as occasion should serve, 
either in educating her children better than her own means 
could compass, or for their future portion. Her sister had 


486 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


enough, was strongly bound to assist Jeanie by any means in 
her power, and the arrangement was so natural and proper, that 
it ought not to be declined out of fastidious or romantic delicacy. 
Jeanie accordingly wrote to her sister, acknowledging her letter, 
and reqiiesting to hear from her as often as she could. In 
entering into her own little details of ncAvs, chiefly respecting 
domestic affairs, she experienced a singular vacillation of ideas ; 
for sometimes she apologised for mentioning things unworthy 
the notice of a lady of rank, and then recollected that every- 
thing which concerned her should be interesting to Effie. Her 
letter, under the cover of Mr. Whiterose, she committed to the 
post-office at Glasgow, by the intervention of a parishioner who 
had business at that city. 

The next week brought the Duke to Roseneath, and shortly 
afterwards he intimated his intention of sporting in their 
neighbourhood, and taking his bed at the manse; an honour 
which he had once or twice done to its inmates on former 
occasions. 

Effie proved to be perfectly right in her anticipations. The 
Duke had hardly set himself down at Mrs. Butler’s right hand, 
and taken upon himself the task of carving the excellent ‘ barn- 
door chucky,’ which had been selected as the high dish upon 
this honourable occasion, before he began to speak of Lady 
Staunton of Willingham, in Lincolnshire, and the great noise 
which her wit and beauty made in London. For much of this 
J eanie Avas, in some measure, prepared ; but Efffe’s Avit ! that 
Avould never have entered into her imagination, being ignorant 
how exactly raillery in the higher rank resembles flippancy 
among their inferiors. 

‘ She has been the ruling belle — the blazing star — the uni- 
versal toast of the AAunter,’ said the Duke; ‘ and is really the most 
beautiful creature that AA^as seen at court upon the birthday.’ 

The birthday ! and at court ! Jeanie was annihilated, re- 
membering Avell her OAvn presentation, all its extraordinary 
circumstances, and particularly the cause of it. 

‘ I mention this lady particularly to you, Mrs. Butler,’ said 
the Duke, ‘because she has something in the sound of her 
voice and cast of her countenance that reminded me of you : 
not when you look so pale though ; you have over-fatigued 
yourself ; you must pledge me in a glass of wine.’ 

She did so, and Butler observed, ‘ It was dangerous flattery 
in his Grace to tell a poor minister’s wife that she Avas like a 
court-beauty.’ 


I 




THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


487 


‘ Oho ! Mr. Butler,’ said the Duke, ‘ I find you are growing 
jealous j but it’s rather too late in the day, for you know how 
long I have admired your wife. But seriously, there is betwixt 
them one of those inexplicable likenesses which we see in coun- 
tenances that do not otherwise resemble each other.’ 

‘ The perilous part of the compliment has flown off,’ thought 
Mr. Butler. 

His wife, feeling the awkwardness of silence, forced herself 
to say, ‘ That perhaps the lady might be her countrywoman, 
and the language might make some resemblance.’ 

‘ You are quite right,’ replied the Duke. ‘ She is a Scotch- 
woman, and speaks with a Scotch accent, and now and then a 
provincial word drops out so prettily that it is quite Doric, 
Mr. Butler.’ 

‘I should have thought,’ said the clergyman, ‘that would 
have sounded vulgar in the great city.’ 

‘Not at all,’ replied the Duke ; ‘you must suppose it is not 
the broad coarse Scotch that is spoken in the Cowgate of 
Edinburgh, or in the Gorbals. This lady has been very little 
in Scotland, in fact. She was educated in a convent abroad, 
and speaks that pure court-Scotch which was common in my 
younger days ; but it is so generally disused now, that it sounds 
like a different dialect, entirely distinct from our modern patois/ 

Notwithstanding her anxiety, Jeanie could not help admir- 
ing within herself, how the most correct judges of life and 
manners can be imposed on by their own preconceptions, while 
the Duke proceeded thus : ‘ She is of the unfortunate house of 
Winton, I believe ; but, being bred abroad, she had missed the 
opportunity of learning her own pedigree, and was obliged to 
me for informing her that she must certainly come of the 
Setouns of Windygoul. I wish you could have seen how prettily 
she blushed at her own ignorance. Amidst her noble and 
elegant manners, there is now and then a little touch of 
bashfulness and conventual rusticity, if I may call it so, that 
makes her quite enchanting. You see at once the rose that 
had bloomed untouched amid the chaste precincts of the cloister, 
Mr. Butler.’ 

True to the hint, Mr. Butler failed not to start with his 
‘ Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis,’ etc. ; 

while his wife could hardly persuade herself that all this was 
spoken of Effie Deans, and by so competent a judge as the 
Duke of Argyle ; and had she been acquainted with Catullus, 


488 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


would have thought the fortunes of her sister had reversed the fi 
whole passage. 

She was, however, determined to obtain some indemnification | 
for the anxious feelings of the moment, by gaining all the | 
intelligence she could; and therefore ventured to make some | 
inquiry about the husband of the lady his Grace admired so | 
much. I 

‘ He is very rich,’ replied the Duke ; ‘ of an ancient family, I 
and has good manners ; but he is far from being such a general I 
favourite as his wife. Some people say he can be very pleasant. 

I never saw him so; but should rather judge him reserved, 
and gloomy, and capricious. He was very wild in his youth, 
they say, and has bad health; yet he is a good-looking man 
enough — a great friend of your Lord High Commissioner of 
the Kirk, Mr. Butler.’ | 

‘Then he is the friend of a very worthy and honourable ^ 
nobleman,’ said Butler. 

‘ Does he admire his lady as much as other people do 1 ’ said 
Jeanie, in a low voice. 

‘ Who — Sir George 1 They say he is very fond of her,’ said 
the Duke ; ‘ but I observe she trembles a little when he fixes 
his eye on her, and that is no good sign. But it is strange 
how I am haunted by this resemblance of yours to Lady 
Staunton, in look and tone of voice. One would almost swear 
you were sisters.’ 

Jeanie’s distress became uncontrollable, and beyond conceal- 
ment. The Duke of Argyle was much disturbed, good-naturedly 
ascribing it to his having unwittingly recalled to her remem- 
brance her family misfortunes. He was too well-bred to attempt 
to apologise ; but hastened to change the subject, and arrange 
certain points of dispute which had occurred betwixt Duncan of 
Knock and the minister, acknowledging that his worthy sub- 
stitute was sometimes a little too obstinate, as well as too 
energetic, in his executive measures. 

Mr. Butler admitted his general merits; but said, ‘He 
would presume to apply to the worthy gentleman the words of 
the poet to Marrucinus Asinius, 

Manu ... 

Non belle uteris in joco atque vino.’ 

The discourse being thus turned on parish business, nothing 
farther occurred that can interest the reader. 


CHAPTER XLIX 


Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, 

And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, 

Thence to be wi’ench’d by an unlineal hand. 

No son of mine succeeding. 

Macbeth. 

After this period, but under the most strict precautions against 
discovery, the sisters corresponded occasionally, exchanging 
letters about twice every year. Those of Lady Staunton spoke 
of her husband’s health and spirits as being deplorably un- 
certain ; her own seemed also to be sinking, and one of the 
topics on which she most frequently dwelt was their want of 
family. Sir George Staunton, always violent, had taken some 
aversion at the next heir, whom he suspected of having irritated 
his friends against him during his absence ; and he declared, he 
would bequeath Willingham and all its lands to an hospital, ere 
that fetch-and-carry tell-tale should inherit an acre of it. 

‘Had he but a child,’ said the unfortunate wife, ‘or had 
that luckless infant survived, it would be some motive for living 
and for exertion. But Heaven has denied us a blessing which 
we have not deserved.’ 

Such complaints, in varied form, but turning frequently on 
the same topic, filled the letters which passed from the spacious 
but melancholy halls of Willingham to the quiet and happy 
parsonage at Knocktarlitie. Years meanwhile rolled on amid 
these fruitless repinings. John Duke of Argyle and Greenwich 
died in the year 1743, universally lamented, but by none more 
than by the Butlers, to whom his benevolence had been so dis- 
tinguished. He was succeeded by his brother Duke Archibald, 
with whom they had not the same intimacy ; but who continued 
the protection which his brother had extended towards them. 
This, indeed, became more necessary than ever ; for, after the 
breaking out and suppression of the rebellion in 1745, the peace 
of the country adjacent to the Highlands was considerably 


490 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


disturbed. Marauders, or men that had been driven to tiiat | 
desperate mode of life, quartered themselves in the fastnesses j 
nearest to the Lowlands, which were their scene of plunder; 
and there is scarce a glen in the romantic and now peaceable | 
Highlands of Perth, Stirling, and Dunbartonshire where one or | 
more did not take up their residence. 

The prime pest of the parish of Knocktarlitie was a certain ' 
Donacha Dhu na Dimaigh, or Black Duncan the Mischievous, 
whom we have already casually mentioned. This fellow had ■ 
been originally a tinkler or ‘caird,’ many of whom stroll about 
these districts; but when all police was disorganised by the - 
civil war, he threw up his profession, and from half thief became 
whole robber ; and being generally at the head of three or four 
active young fellows, and he himself artful, bold, and well 
acquainted with the passes, he plied his new profession with ; 
emolument to himself and infinite plague to the country. 

All were convinced that Duncan of Knock could have put ! 
down his namesake Donacha any morning he had a mind ; for | 
there were in the parish a set of stout young men who had | 
joined Argyle’s banner in the war under his old friend, and 
behaved very well upon several occasions. And as for their j 
leader, as no one doubted his courage, it was generally supposed 
that Donacha had found out the mode of conciliating his 
favour, a thing not very uncommon in that age and country. 
This was the more readily believed, as David Deans’s cattle, 
being the property of the Duke, were left untouched, when 
the minister’s cows were carried ofif by the thieves. Another 
attempt was made to renew the same act of rapine, and the 
cattle were in the act of being driven off, when- Butler, laying 
his profession aside in a case of such necessity, put himself at 
the head of some of his neighbours, and rescued the creagh ; 
an exploit at which Deans attended in person, notwithstanding 
his extreme old age, mounted on a Highland pony, and girded 
with an old broadsword, likening himself (for he failed not to 
arrogate the whole merit of the expedition) to David the son of 
Jesse, when he recovered the spoil of Ziklag from the Amale- 
kites. This spirited behaviour had so far a good effect, that 
Donacha Dhu na Dunaigh kept his distance for some time to 
come ; and, though his distant exploits were frequently spoken 
of, he did not exercise any depredations in that part of the 
country. He continued to flourish, and to be heard of 
occasionally, until the year 1751, when, if the fear of the 
second David had kept him in check, fate released him from 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


491 


j that restraint, for the venerable patriarch of St. Leonard’s was 
that year gathered to his fathers. 

David Deans died full of years and of honour. He is 
believed, for the exact time of his birth is not known, to have 
lived upwards of ninety years ; for he used to speak of events 
as falling under his own knowledge which happened about the 
time of the battle of Bothwell Bridge. It was said that he 
even bore arms there, for once, when a drunken Jacobite laird 
wished for a Bothwell Brig Whig, that ‘ he might stow the lugs 
out of his head,’ David informed him with a peculiar austerity 
of countenance that, if he liked to try such a prank, there was 
one at his elbow ; and it required the interference of Butler to 
preserve the peace. 

He expired in the arms of his beloved daughter, thankful for 
all the blessings which Providence had vouchsafed to him while 
in this valley of strife and toil, and thankful also for the trials 
he had been visited with ; having found them, he said, needful 
to mortify that spiritual pride and confidence in his own gifts 
wjjich was the side on which the wily Enemy did most sorely 
beset him. He prayed in the most aftecting manner for Jeanie, 
her husband, and her family, and that her affectionate duty to 
‘ the puir auld man ’ might purchase her length of days here and 
happiness hereafter ; then in a pathetic petition, too well under- 
stood by those who knew his family circumstances, he besought 
the Shepherd of souls, while gathering His flock, not to forget 
the little one that had strayed from the fold, and even then 
might be in the hands of the ravening wolf. He prayed for the 
national Jerusalem, that peace might be in her land and pro- 
sperity in her palaces ; for the welfare of the honourable house 
; of Argyle, and for the conversion of Duncan of Knockdunder. 
After this he was silent, being exhausted, nor did he again utter 
anything distinctly. He was heard, indeed, to mutter some- 
thing about national defections, right-hand extremes, and left- 
hand fallings off ; but, as May Hettly observed, his head was 
‘ carried ’ at the time ; and it is probable that these expressions 
occurred to him merely out of general habit, and that he died 
in the full spirit of charity with all men. About an hour after- 
wards he slept in the Lord. 

Notwithstanding her father’s advanced age, his death was a 
severe shock to Mrs. Butler. Much of her time had been dedi- 
cated to attending to his health and his wishes, and she felt as 
if part of her business in the world was ended when the good 
old man was no more. His wealth, which came nearly to 


492 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


<£1500, in disposable capital, served to raise the fortunes of 
the family at the manse. How to dispose of this sum for the 
best advantage of his family was matter of anxious consideration 
to Butler. 

‘ If we put it on heritable bond, we shall maybe lose the 
interest; for there’s that bond over Lounsbeck’s land, your 
father could neither get principal nor interest for it. If we 
bring it into the funds, we shall maybe lose the principal and 
all, as many did in the South Sea scheme. The little estate of 
Craigsture is in the market ; it lies within two miles of the 
manse, and Knock says his Grace has no thought to buy it. 
But they ask £2500, and they may, for it is worth the money ; 
and were I to borrow the balance, the creditor might call it 
up suddenly, or in case of my death my family might be dis- 
tressed.’ 

‘ And so, if we had mair siller, we might buy that bonny 
pasture-ground, where the grass comes so early?’ asked Jeanie. 

‘ Certainly, my dear ; and Knockdunder, who is a good judge, 
is strongly advising me to it. To be sure it is his nephew that 
is selling it.’ 

‘Aweel, Reuben,’ said Jeanie, ‘ye maun just look up a text 
in Scripture, as ye did when ye wanted siller before. Just look 
up a text in the Bible.’ 

‘Ah, Jeanie,’ said Butler, laughing and pressing her hand at 
the same time, ‘ the best people in these times can only work 
miracles once.’ 

‘We will see,’ said Jeanie, composedly; and going to the 
closet ill which she kept her honey, her sugar, her pots of jelly, 
her vials of the more ordinary medicines, and which served her, 
in short, as a sort of store-room, she jangled vials and gallipots, 
till, from out the darkest nook, well flanked by a triple row of 
bottles and jars, which she was under the necessity of displacing, 
she brought a cracked brown can, with a piece of leather tied 
over the top. Its contents seemed to be written papers, thrust 
in disorder into this uncommon secretaire. But from among 
these Jeanie brought an old clasped Bible, which had been 
David Deans’s companion in his earlier wanderings, and which 
he had given to his daughter when the failure of his eyes had 
compelled him to use one of a larger print. This she gave to 
Butler, who had been looking at her motions with some surprise, 
and desired him to see Avhat that book could do for him. He 
opened the clasps, and to his astonishment a parcel of £50 
bank-notes dropped out from betwixt the leaves, where they 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


493 


had been separately lodged, and fluttered upon the floor. ‘ I 
didna think to hae tauld you o’ my wealth, Reuben,’ said his 
wife, smiling at his surprise, ‘ till on my deathbed, or maybe on 
some family pinch ; but it wad be better laid out on yon bonny 
grass-holms, than lying useless here in this auld pigg.’ 

‘ How on earth came ye by that siller, Jeanie ? Why, here 
is more than a thousand pounds,’ said Butler, lifting up and 
counting the notes. 

‘If it were ten thousand, it’s a’ honestly come by,’ said 
Jeanie; ‘and troth I kenna how muckle there is o’t, but it’s a’ 
there that ever I got. And as for how I came by it, Reuben — 
it’s weel come by and honestly, as I said before. And it’s mair 
folks’ secret than mine, or ye wad hae kenn’d about it lang syne ; 
and as for ony thing else, I am not free to answer mair questions 
about it, and ye maun just ask me nane.’ 

‘Answer me but one,’ said Butler. ‘Is it all freely and 
indisputably your own property, to dispose of it as you think 
fit ? Is it possible no one has a claim in so large a sum except 
you ? ’ 

‘ It was mine, free to dispose of it as I like,’ answered Jeanie ; 
‘ and I have disposed of it already, for now it is yours, Reuben. 
You are Bible Butler now, as weel as your forbear, that my puir 
father had sic an ill-will at. Only, if ye like, I wad wish Femie 
to get a glide share o’t when we are gane.’ 

‘Certainly, it shall be as you choose. But who on earth 
ever pitched on such a hiding-place for temporal treasures % ’ 

‘ That is just ane o’ my auld-fashioned gates, as you ca’ them, 
Reuben. I thought, if Donacha Dhu was to make an outbreak 
upon us, the Bible was the last thing in the house he wad 
meddle wi’. But an ony mair siller should drap in, as it is not 
unlikely, I shall e’en pay it ower to you, and ye may lay it out 
^ your ain w^ay.’ 

‘ And I positively must not ask you how you have come by 
( all this money ? ’ said the clergyman. 

. ‘ Indeed, Reuben, you must not ; for if you were asking me 

very sair I wad maybe tell you, and then I am sure I would do 
wrong.’ 

‘ But tell me,’ said Butler, ‘ is it anything that distresses your 
own mind ? ’ 

‘There is baith weal and woe come aye wi’ warld’s gear, 
i Reuben ; but ye maun ask me naething mair. This siller binds 
1 me to naething, and can never be speered back again.’ 

‘ Surely,’ said Mr. Butler, when he had again counted over 


494 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


the money, as if to assure himself that the notes were real, 

‘ there was never man in the world had a wife like mine : a 
blessing seems to follow her.’ 

‘Never,’ said Jeanie, ‘since the enchanted princess in the 
bairns’ fairy tale, that kamed gold nobles out o’ the tae side of 
her haffit locks and Dutch dollars out o’ the tother. But gang 
away now, minister, and put by the siller, and dinna keep the i 
notes wampishing in your hand that gate, or I shall wish them i 
in the brown pigg again, for fear we get a back -cast about \ 
them ; we’re ower near the hills in these times to be thought 
to hae siller in the house. And, besides, ye maun gree wi’ i 
Knockdunder, that has the selling o’ the lands ; and dinna you 
be simple and let him ken o’ this windfa’, but keep him to the i 
very lowest penny, as if ye had to borrow siller to make the i 
price up.’ i 

In the last admonition Jeanie showed distinctly that, al- i 
though she did not understand how to secure the money which 
came into her hands otherwise than by saving and hoarding it, 
yet she had some part of her father David’s shrewdness, even 
upon worldly subjects. And Reuben Butler was a prudent man, 
and went and did even as his wife had advised him. 

The news quickly went abroad into the parish that the min- 
ister had bought Craigsture ; and some wished him joy, and 
some ‘ were sorry it had gane out of the auld name.’ How- 
ever, his clerical brethren, understanding that he was under 
the necessity of going to Edinburgh about the ensuing Whit- 
sunday, to get together David Deans’s cash to make up the 
purchase-money of his new acquisition, took the opportunity to 
name him their delegate to the General Assembly, or Convoca- 
tion of the Scottish Church, which takes place usually in the 
latter end of the month of May. 


CHAPTER L 


But who is this ? what thing of sea or land — 

Female of sex it seems — 

That so bedeck’d, ornate, and gay, 

Comes this way sailing ? 

Milton, 

Not long after the incident of the Bible and the bank-notes, 
Fortune showed that she could surprise Mrs. Butler as well as 
her husband. The minister, in order to accomplish the various 
pieces of business which his umvonted visit to Edinburgh 
rendered necessary, had been under the necessity of setting 
out from home in the latter end of the month of February, 
concluding justly that he would find the space betwixt his 
departure and the term of Whitsunday (24th May) short enough 
for the purpose of bringing forward those various debtors of old 
David Deans out of whose purses a considerable part of the 
price of his new purchase w^as to be made good. 

Jeanie was thus in the unwonted situation of inhabiting a 
lonely house, and she felt yet more solitary from the death of 
the good old man, who used to divide her cares with her hus- 
band. Her children w^ere her principal resource, and to them 
she paid constant attention. 

It happened, a day or two after Butler’s departure, that, 
while she was engaged in some domestic duties, she heard a 
dispute among the young folk, which, being maintained with 
obstinacy, appeared to call for her interference. All came to 
their natural umpire with their complaints. Femie, not yet 
ten years old, charged Davie and Reubie with an attempt to 
take away her book by force ; and David and Reuben replied — 
the elder, ‘That it was not a book for Femie to read,’ and 
Reuben, ‘ That it was about a bad woman.’ 

‘ Where did you get the book, ye little hempie ? ’ said Mrs. 
Butler. ‘ How' dare ye touch papa’s books when he is away ? ’ 

But the little lady, holding fast a sheet of crumpled paper. 


496 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


declared, ‘ It was nane o’ papa’s books, and May Hettly had 
taken it off the muckle cheese which came from Inverara ’ ; for, 
as was very natural to suppose, a friendly intercourse, with 
interchange of mutual civilities, was kept up from time to 
time between Mrs. Dolly Dutton, now Mrs. MacCorkindale, and 
her former friends. 

Jeanie took the subject of contention out of the child’s hamd, 
to satisfy herself of the propriety of her studies ; but how much 
was she struck when she read upon the title of the broadside 
sheet, ‘The Last Speech, Confession, and Dying Words of 
Margaret MacCraw, or Murdockson, executed on Harabee Hill, 

near Carlisle, the — day of , 1737.’ It was, indeed, one of 

those papers which Archibald had bought at Longtown, when 
he monopolised the pedlar’s stock, which Dolly had thrust into 
her trunk out of sheer economy. One or two copies, it seems, 
had remained in her repositories at Inverary, till she chanced 
to need them in packing a cheese, which, as a very superior 
production, was sent in the way of civil challenge to the dairy 
at Knocktarlitie. 

The title of this paper, so strangely fallen into the very 
hands from which, in well-meant respect to her feelings, it had 
been so long detained, was of itself sufficiently startling ; but 
the narrative itself was so interesting that Jeanie, shaking 
herself loose from the children, ran upstairs to her own apart- 
ment, and bolted the door, to peruse it without interruption. 

The narrative, which appeared to have been drawn up, or 
at least corrected, by the clergyman who attended this unhappy 
woman, stated the crime for which she suffered to have been 
‘ her active part in that atrocious robbery and murder, com- 
mitted near two years since near Haltwhistle, for which the 
notorious Frank Levitt was committed for trial at Lancaster 
assizes. It was supposed the evidence of the accomplice, 
Thomas Tuck, commonly called Tyburn Tom, upon which the 
woman had been convicted, would weigh equally heavy against 
him ; although many were inclined to think it was Tuck him- 
self who had struck the fatal blow, according to the dying 
statement of Meg Murdockson.’ 

After a circumstantial account of the crime for which she 
suffered, there was a brief sketch of Margaret’s life. It was 
stated that she was a Scotchwoman by birth, and married a 
soldier in the Cameronian regiment; that she long followed 
the camp, and had doubtless acquired in fields of battle, and 
similar scenes, that ferocity and love of plunder for which she 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


497 


had been afterwards distinguished ; that her husband, having 
obtained his discharge, became servant to a beneficed clergyman 
of high situation and character in Lincolnshire, and that she 
acquired the confidence and esteem of that honourable family. 
She had lost this many years after her husband’s death, it was 
stated, in consequence of conniving at the irregularities of her 
daughter with the heir of the family, added to the suspicious 
circumstances attending the birth of a child, which was strongly 
suspected to have met with foul play, in order to preserve, if 
possible, the girl’s reputation. After this, she had led a 
wandering life both in England and Scotland, under colour 
sometimes of telling fortunes, sometimes of driving a trade 
in smuggled wares, but, in fact, receiving stolen goods, and 
occasionally actively joining in the exploits by which they were 
: obtained. Many of her crimes she had boasted of after con- 
|; viction, and there was one circumstance for which she seemed 
) to feel a mixture of joy and occasional compunction. When 
1 she was residing in the suburbs of Edinburgh during the 
' preceding summer, a girl, who had been seduced by one of 
I her confederates, was entrusted to her charge, and in her house 
delivered of a male infant. Her daughter, whose mind was in 
I a state of derangement ever since she had lost her own child, 
f according to the criminal’s account, carried off the poor girl’s 
infant, taking it for her own, of the reality of whose death she 
at times could not be persuaded. 

Margaret Murdockson stated that she for some time be- 
lieved her daughter had actually destroyed the infant in her 
mad fits, and that she gave the father to understand so, but 
afterwards learned that a female stroller had got it from her. 
She showed some compunction at having separated mother and 
child, especially as the mother had nearly suffered death, being 
, condemned, on the Scotch law, for the supposed murder of her 
infant. When it was asked what possible interest she could 
have had in exposing the unfortunate girl to suffer for a crime 
she had not committed, she asked, if they thought she was 
going to put her own daughter into trouble to save another. 
She did not know what the Scotch law would have done to her 
for carrying the child away. This answer was by no means 
satisfactory to the clergyman, and he discovered, by close 
examination, that she had a deep and revengeful hatred against 
the young person whom she had thus injured. But the paper 
intimated that, whatever besides she had communicated upon 
this subject, was confided by her in private to the worthy and 

32 


VII 


498 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


reverend archdeacon who had bestowed such particular pains 
in affording her spiritual assistance. The broadside went on 
to intimate that, after her execution, of which the particulars 
were given, her daughter, the insane person mentioned more 
than once, and who Avas generally knoAvn by the name of Madge 
Wildfire, had been very ill used by the populace, under the 
belief that she Avas a sorceress, and an accomplice in her 
mother’s crimes, and had been Avith difficulty rescued by the 
prompt interference of the police. 

Such (for Ave omit moral reflections and all that may seem 
unnecessary to the explanation of our story) Avas the tenor 
of the broadside. To Mrs. Butler it contained intelligence of 
the highest importance, since it seemed to afford the most un- 
equivocal proof of her sister’s innocence respecting the crime for 
which she had so nearly suffered. It is true, neither she nor 
her husband, nor even her father, had ever believed her capable 
of touching her infant Avith an unkind hand Avhen in possession 
of her reason ; but there Avas a darkness on the subject, and 
Avhat might have happened in a moment of insanity Avas dread- 
ful to think upon. Besides, Avhatever Avas their own conviction, 
they had no means of establishing Effie’s innocence to the Avorld, 
Avhich, according to the tenor of this fugitive publication, was 
now at length completely manifested by the dying confession 
of the person chiefly interested in concealing it. 

After thanking God for a discovery so dear to her feelings, 
Mrs. Butler began to consider Avhat use she should make of it. 
To have shown it to her husband would have been her first 
impulse ; but, besides that he Avas absent from home, and the 
matter too delicate to be the subject of correspondence by an 
indifferent peiiAvoman, Mrs. Butler recollected that he was not 
possessed of the information necessary to form a judgment 
upon the occasion ; and that, adhering to the rule Avhich she 
had considered as most advisable, she had best transmit the 
information immediately to her sister, and leave her to adjust 
with her husband the mode in which they should avail them- 
selves of it. Accordingly, she despatched a special messenger 
to Glasgow Avith a packet, inclosing the ‘Confession’ of Margaret 
Murdockson, addressed, as usual, under cover to Mr. Whiterose 
of York. She expected, Avith anxiety, an ansAver; but none 
arrived in the usual course of post, and she Avas left to imagine 
how many various causes might account for Lady Staunton’s 
silence. She began to be half sorry that she had parted with 
the printed paper, both for fear of its having fallen into bad 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


499 


hands, and from the desire of regaining the document, which 
might be essential to establish her sister’s innocence. She was 
even doubting whether she had not better commit the whole 
matter to her husband’s consideration, when other incidents 
occurred to divert her purpose. 

Jeanie (slie is a favourite, and we beg her pardon for still 
using the familiar title) had walked down to the seaside with 
her children one morning after breakfast, when the boys, whoso 
sight was more discriminating than hers, exclaimed, that ‘ the 
Captain’s coach and six was coming right for the shore, with 
ladies in it.’ Jeanie instinctively bent her eyes on the approach- 
ing boat, and became soon sensible that there were two females 
in the stem, seated beside the gracious Duncan, who acted as 
pilot. It was a point of politeness to walk towards the landing- 
place, in order to receive them, especially as she saw that the 
' Captain of Knockdunder was upon honour and ceremony. His 
‘ I piper was in the bow of the boat, sending forth music, of which 
1 one half sounded the better that the other was drowned by the 
waves and the breeze. Moreover, he himself had his brigadier 
I ‘ wig newly frizzed, his bonnet (he had abjured the cocked hat) 
' ■ decorated with St. George’s red cross, his uniform mounted as 
^ a captain of militia, the Duke’s flag with the boar’s head dis- 
* played, — all intimated parade and gala. 

As Mrs. Butler approached the landing-place, she observed 
I the Captain hand the ladies ashore with marks of great attention, 

I and the parties advanced towards her, the Captain a few steps 
t before the two ladies, of whom the taller and elder leaned on 
e the shoulder of the other, who seemed to be an attendant or 
“ servant. 

t As they met, Duncan, in his best, most important, and 
t , deepest tone of Highland civility, ‘ pegged leave to introduce 
J 1 to Mrs. Putler, Lady — eh — eh — I hae forgotten your leddy- 
8 ship’s name ! ’ 

t ‘ Never mind my name, sir,’ said the lady ; ‘ I trust Mrs. 

■ Butler will be at no loss. The Duke’s letter ’ And, as she 

observed Mrs. Butler look confused, she said again to Duncan, 

I something sharply, ‘ Did you not send the letter last night, 
sir ? ’ 

‘ In troth and I didna, and I crave your leddyship’s pardon ; 
but you see, matam, I thought it would do as weel to-tay, 
i pecause Mrs. Putler is never taen out o’ sorts — never ; and the 
coach was out fishing ; and the gig was gane to Greenock for 
a cag of prandy ; and Put here’s his Grace’s letter.’ 


500 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘Give it me, sir,’ said the lady, taking it out of his hand; 

‘ since you have not found it convenient to do me the favour to 
send it before me, I will deliver it myself.’ 

Mrs. Butler looked with great attention, and a certain dubious 
feeling of deep interest, on the lady who thus expressed herself 
with authority over the man of authority, and to whose man- 
dates he seemed to submit, resigning the letter with a ‘ J ust as 
your leddyship is pleased to order it.’ 

The lady was rather above the middle size, beautifully made, 
though something embonpoint, with a hand and arm exquisitely 
formed. Her manner was easy, dignified, and commanding, and 
seemed to evince high birth and the habits of elevated society. 
She wore a travelling dress, a grey beaver hat, and a veil of 
Flanders lace. Two footmen, in rich liveries, who got out of 
the barge, and lifted out a trunk and portmanteau, appeared ! 
to belong to her suite. 

‘As you did not receive the letter, madam, which should 
have served for my introduction — for I presume you are Mrs. 
Butler — I will not present it to you till you are so good as to 
admit me into your house without it.’ 

‘To pe sure, matam,’ said Knockdunder, ‘ye canna doubt 
Mrs. Putler will do that. Mrs. Putler, this is Lady — Lady — 
these tamn’d Southern names rin out o’ my head like a stane 
trowling downhill — put I believe she is a Scottish woman porn 
— the mair our credit ; and I presume her leddyship is of the 
house of ’ 

‘ The Duke of Argyle knows my family very well, sir,’ said 
the lady, in a tone which seemed designed to silence Duncan, 
or, at any rate, which had that effect completely. j 

There was something about the whole of this stranger’s I 
address, and tone, and manner which acted upon Jeanie’s feel- I 
ings like the illusions of a dream, that teaze us with a puzzling 
approach to reality. Something there was of her sister in , 
the gait and manner of the stranger, as well as in the sound of ! 
her voice, and something also, when, lifting her veil, she showed I 
features to which, changed as they were in expression and com- ' 
plexion, she could not but attach many remembrances. 

The stranger was turned of thirty certainly; but so well i 
were her personal charms assisted by the power of dress and 
arrangement of ornament, that she might well have passed for ' 
one -and -twenty. And her behaviour was so steady and so i 
composed, that as often as Mrs. Butler perceived anew some i 
point of resemblance to her unfortunate sister, so often the 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


501 


sustained self-command and absolute composure of the stranger 
destroyed the ideas which began to arise in her imagination. 
She led the way silently towards the manse, lost in a confusion 
of reflections, and trusting the letter with which she was to be 
there entrusted would afford her satisfactory explanation of what 
was a most puzzling and embarrassing scene. 

The lady maintained in the meanwhile the manners of a 
stranger of rank. She admired the various points of view like 
one who has studied nature and the best representations of 
art. At length she took notice of the children. 

‘ These are two fine young mountaineers. Yours, madam, 
I presume ? ’ 

Jeanie replied in the affirmative. The stranger sighed, and 
sighed once more as they were presented to her by name. 

‘Come here, Femie,’ said Mrs. Butler, ‘and hold your head 
up.’ 

‘ What is your daughter’s name, madam ? ’ said the lady. 

‘ Euphemia, madam,’ answered Mrs. Butler. 

‘ I thought the ordinary Scottish contraction of the name 
had been Effie,’ replied the stranger, in a tone which went 
to J eanie’s heart ; for in that single word there was more of 
her sister — more of lang syne ideas — than in all the reminis- 
cences wffiich her own heart had anticipated, or the features 
and manner of the stranger had suggested. 

When they reached the manse, the lady gave Mrs. Butler 
the letter which she had taken out of the hands of Knock- 
dunder ; and as she gave it she pressed her hand, adding aloud, 

‘ Perhaps, madam, you will have the goodness to get me a little 
milk.’ 

‘ And me a drap of the grey-peard, if you please, Mrs. Putler,’ 
added Duncan. 

Mrs. Butler withdrew; but, deputing to May Hettly and 
to David the supply of the strangers’ wants, she hastened into 
her own room to read the letter. The envelope was addressed 
in the Duke of Argyle’s hand, and requested Mrs. Butler’s atten- 
tions and civility to a lady of rank, a particular friend of his 
late brother. Lady Staunton of Willingham, who, being recom- 
mended to drink goats’ whey by the physicians, was to honour 
the Lodge at Roseneath with her residence, while her husband 
made a short tour in Scotland. But within the same cover, 
which had been given to Lady Staunton unsealed, was a letter 
from that lady, intended to prepare her sister for meeting her, 
and which, but for the Captain’s negligence, she ought to have 


502 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


received on the preceding evening. It stated that the news 
in Jeanie’s last letter had been so interesting to her husband, 
that he was determined to inquire farther into the confession 
made at Carlisle, and the fate of that poor innocent, and that, 
as he had been in some degree successful, she had, by the 
most earnest entreaties, extorted rather than obtained his per- 
mission, under promise of observing the most strict incognito, 
to spend a week or two with her sister, or in her neighbour- i 
hood, while he was prosecuting researches, to which (though it 
appeared to her very vainly) he seemed to attach some hopes 
of success. i 

There was a postscript, desiring that Jeanie would trust to 
Lady S. the management of their intercourse, and be content 
with assenting to what she should propose. After reading 
and again reading the letter, Mrs. Butler hurried downstairs, 
divided betwixt the fear of betraying her secret and the desire 
to throw herself upon her sister’s neck. Effie received her with 
a glance at once affectionate and cautionary, and immediately 
proceeded to speak. 

‘ I have been telling Mr. , Captain , this gentleman, 

Mrs. Butler, that if you could accommodate me with an apart- 
ment in your house, and a place for Ellis to sleep, and for the 
two men, it would suit me better than the Lodge, which his 
Grace has so kindly placed at my disposal. I am advised I 
should reside as near where the goats feed as possible.’ 

‘ I have peen assuring my leddy, Mrs. Butler,’ said Duncan, 

‘ that, though it could not discommode you to receive any of his 
Grace’s visitors or mine, yet she had mooch petter stay at the 
Lodge ; and for the gaits, the creatures can be fetched there, . 
in respect it is mair fitting they suld wait upon her leddyship, 
than she upon the like of them.’ 

‘ By no means derange the goats for me,’ said Lady Staunton ; j 
‘ I am certain the milk must be much better here.’ And this 
she said with languid negligence, as one whose slightest intima- 
tion of humour is to bear down all argument. 

Mrs. Butler hastened to intimate that her house, such as it 
was, was heartily at the disposal of Lady Staunton ; but the 
Captain continued to remonstrate. 

‘ The Duke,’ he said, ‘ had written ’ 

‘ I will settle all that with his Grace ’ 

‘And there were the things had been sent down frae 
Glasco ’ 

‘ Anything necessarj^ might be sent over to the parsonage, | 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 503 

She would beg the favour of Mrs. Butler to show her an apart- 
ment, and of the Captain to have her trunks, etc., sent over 
from Roseneath.’ 

So she courtesied off poor Duncan, who departed, saying in his 
secret soul, ‘ Cot tamn her English impudence ! She takes pos- 
session of the minister’s house as an it were her ain ; and speaks 
to shentlemens as if they were pounden servants, an’ pe tamn’d 
to her ! And there’s the deer that was shot too ; but we will 
send it ower to the manse, whilk will pe put civil, seeing I hae 
prought worthy Mrs. Butler sic a fliskmahoy.’ And with these 
kind intentions, he went to the shore to give his orders ac- 
cordingly. 

In the meantime, the meeting of the sisters was as affection- 
ate as it was extraordinary, and each evinced her feelings in 
the way proper to her character. Jeanie was so much overcome 
by wonder, and even by awe, that her feelings were deep, stun- 
ning, and almost overpowering. Effie, on the other hand, wept, 
laughed, sobbed, screamed, and clapped her hands for joy, all 
in the space of five minutes, giving way at once, and without 
reserve, to a natural excessive vivacity of temper, which no one, 
however, knew better how to restrain under the rules of artificial 
breeding. 

After an hour had passed like a moment in their expressions 
of mutual affection. Lady Staunton observed the Captain walk- 
ing with impatient steps below the window. ‘ That tiresome 
Highland fool has returned upon our hands,’ she said. ‘ I will 
pray him to grace us with his absence.’ 

‘ Hout no ! hout no ! ’ said Mrs. Butler, in a tone of entreaty ; 

‘ ye maunna affront the Captain.’ 

‘ Affront ! ’ said Lady Staunton ; ‘ nobody is ever affronted 
at what I do or say, my dear. However, I will endure him, 
since you think it proper.’ 

The Captain was accordingly graciously requested by Lady 
Staunton to remain during dinner. During this visit his 
studious and punctilious complaisance towards the lady of rank 
was happily contrasted by the cavalier air of civil familiarity 
in which he indulged towards the minister’s wife. 

‘ I have not been able to persuade Mrs. Butler,’ said Lady 
Staunton to the Captain, during the interval when Jeanie had 
left the parlour, ‘to let me talk of making any recompense 
for storming her house, and garrisoning it in the way I have 
done.’ 

‘Doubtless, matam,’ said the Captain, ‘it wad ill pecome 


504 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Mrs. Putler, wha is a very decent pody, to make any such 
sharge to a lady who comes from my house, or his Grace’s, 
which is the same thing. And, speaking of garrisons, in the , 
year forty -five I was poot with a garrison of twenty of my i 
lads in the house of Invergarry, whilk had near been un- I 

happily, for ’ | 

‘ I beg your pardon, sir. But I wish I could think of some | 
way of indemnifying this good lady.’ 

‘ 0, no need of intemnifying at all ; no trouble for her — 
nothing at all. So, peing in the house of Invergarry, and 
the people about it being uncanny, I doubted the warst, ! 
and ’ 

‘ Do you happen to know, sir,’ said Lady Staunton, ‘ if any 
of these two lads — these young Butlers, I mean — show any turn 
for the army ? ’ ' 

‘Could not say, indeed, my leddy,’ replied Knockdunder. 

‘ So, I knowing the people to pe unchancy, and not to lippen 
to, and hearing a pibroch in the wood, I pegan to pid my lads 

look to their flints, and then ’ 

‘ For,’ said Lady Staunton, with the most ruthless disregard 
to the narrative which she mangled by these interruptions, ‘ if 
that should be the case, it should cost Sir George but the 
asking a pair of colours for one of them at the War Office, 
since we have always supported government, and never had 
occasion to trouble ministers.’ 

‘ And if you please, my leddy,’ said Duncan, who began to 
find some savour in this proposal, ‘ as I hae a braw weel-grown 
lad of a nevoy, ca’d Duncan MacGilligan, that is as pig as paith ' 
the Putler pairns putten thegither. Sir George could ask a 
pair for him at the same time, and it wad pe put ae asking 
for a’.’ * j 

Lady Staunton only answered this hint with a well-bred 
stare, which gave no sort of encouragement. ■ 

Jeanie, who now returned, was lost in amazement at the- I 
wonderful difference betwixt the helpless and despairing girl i 
whom she had seen stretched on a flock-bed in a dungeon, I 
expecting a violent and disgraceful death, and last as a forlorn 
exile upon the midnight beach, with the elegant, well-bred, 
beautiful woman before her. The features, now that her sister’s 
veil was laid aside, did not appear so extremely different as the 
whole manner, expression, look, and bearing. In outside show. 
Lady Staunton seemed completely a creature too soft and fair 
for sorrow to have touched ; so much accustomed to have all 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


505 


her whims complied with by those around her, that she seemed 
to expect she should even be saved the trouble of forming 
them; and so totally unacquainted with contradiction, that 
she did not even use the tone of self-will, since to breathe a 
wish was to have it fulfilled. She made no ceremony of ridding 
herself of Duncan as soon as the evening approached ; but 
complimented him out of the house, under pretext of fatigue, 
with the utmost nonchalance. 

When they were alone, her sister could not help expressing 
her wonder at the self-possession with which Lady Staunton 
sustained her part. 

‘I daresay you are surprised at it,’ said Lady Staunton, 
composedly; ‘for you, my dear Jeanie, have been truth itself 
from your cradle upwards ; but you must remember that I am 
a liar of fifteen years’ standing, and therefore must by this time 
be used to my character.’ 

In fact, during the feverish tumult of feelings excited during 
the two or three first days, Mrs. Butler thought her sister’s 
manner was completely contradictory of the desponding tone 
which pervaded her correspondence. She was moved to tears, 
indeed, by the sight of her father’s grave, marked by a modest 
stone, recording his piety and integrity ; but lighter impressions 
and associations had also power over her. She amused herself 
with visiting the dairy, in which she had so long been assistant, 
and was so near discovering herself to May Hettly, by betray- 
ing her acquaintance with the celebrated receipt for Dunlop 
cheese, that she compared herself to Bedreddin Hassan, whom 
the vizier, his father-in-law, discovered by his superlative skill 
in composing cream-tarts with pepper in them. But when the 
novelty of such avocations ceased to amuse her, she showed to 
her sister but too plainly that the gaudy colouring with which 
she veiled her unhappiness afforded as little real comfort as 
the gay uniform of the soldier when it is drawn over his 
mortal wound. There were moods and moments in which her 
despondence seemed to exceed even that which she herself had 
described in her letters, and which too well convinced Mrs. 
Butler how little her sister’s lot, which in appearance was so 
brilliant, was in reality to be envied. 

There was one source, however, from which Lady Staunton 
derived a pure degree of pleasure. Gifted in every particular 
with a higher degree of imagination than that of her sister, she 
was an admirer of the beauties of nature, a taste which com- 
pensates many evils to those who happen to enjoy it. Here 


506 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


her character of a fine lady stopped sliort, where she ought to 
have 

Scream’d at ilk cleugli, and screech’d at ilka how, 

As loud as she had seen the worriecow. 


On the contrary, with the two boys for her guides, she under- 
took long and fatiguing walks among the neighbouring moun- 
tains, to visit glens, lakes, waterfalls, or whatever scenes of ' 
natural wonder or beauty lay concealed among their recesses, j 
It is Wordsworth, I think, who, talking of an old man under 
difiiculties, remarks, with a singular attention to nature. 

Whether it was care that spurred him, 

God only knows ; but to the very last. 

He had the lightest foot in Ennerdale. 

In the same manner, languid, listless, and unhappy within 
doors, at times even indicating something which approached 
near to contempt of the homely accommodations of her sister’s 
house, although she instantly endeavoured, by a thousand 
kindnesses, to atone for such ebullitions of spleen. Lady Staunton 
appeared to feel interest and energy while in the open air, and 
traversing the mountain landscapes in society with the two 
boys, whose ears she delighted with stories of what she had 
seen in other countries, and what she had to show them at 
Willingham Manor. And they, on the other hand, exerted 
themselves in doing the honours of Dunbartonshire to the lady 
who seemed so kind, insomuch that there was scarce a glen in 
the neighbouring hills to which they did not introduce her. 

Upon one of these excursions, while Reuben was otherwise 
employed, David alone acted as Lady Staunton’s guide, and 
promised to show her a cascade in the hills, grander and higher 
than any they had yet visited. It was a walk of five long 
miles, and over rough ground, varied, however, and cheered, by' 
mountain views, and peeps now of the firth and its islands,: 
now of distant lakes, now of rocks and precipices. The scene , 
itself, too, when they reached it, amply rewarded the labour of^ 
the walk. A single shoot carried a considerable stream overy^ 
the face of a black rock, which contrasted strongly in colour 
with the white foam of the cascade, and, at the depth of about 
twenty feet, another rock intercepted the view of the bottom 
of the fall. The water, wheeling out far beneath, swept round 
the crag, which thus bounded their view, and tumbled downj 
the rocky glen in a torrent of foam. Those who love nature!' 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


507 


always desii'e to penetrate into its utmost recesses, and Lady 
Staunton asked David whether there was not some mode of 
gaining a view of the abyss at the foot of the fall. He said 
that he knew a station on a shelf on the further side of the 
intercepting rock, from which the whole waterfall was visible, 
but that the road to it was steep and slippery and dangerous. 
Bent, however, on gratifying her curiosity, she desired him to 
lead the way ; and accordingly he did so over crag and stone, 
anxiously pointing out to her the resting-places where she 
ought to step, for their mode of advancing soon ceased to be 
walking, and became scrambling. 

In this manner, clinging like sea-birds to the face of the 
rock, they Avere enabled at length to turn round it, and came 
full in front of the fall, which here had a most tremendous 
aspect, boiling, roaring, and thundering with iinceasing din 
into a black cauldron, a hundred feet at least below them, 
which resembled the crater of a volcano. The noise, the dash- 
ing of the waters, which gave an unsteady appearance to all 
around them, the trembling even of the huge crag on which 
they stood, the precariousness of their footing, for there was 
scarce room for them to stand on the shelf of rock which they 
had thus attained, had so poAverful an effect on the senses and 
imagination of Lady Staunton, that she called out to David she 
Avas falling, and Avould in fact have dropped from the crag had 
he not caught hold of her. The boy Avas bold and stout of his 
age ; still he A\'as but fourteen years old, and as his assistance 
gave no confidence to Lady Staunton, she felt her situation 
become really perilous. The chance Avas that, in the appalling 
novelty of the'circumstances, he might have caught the infection 
of her panic, in Avhich case it is likely that both must have 
perished. She noAv screamed Avith terror, though Avithout hope 
of calling any one to her assistance. To her amazement, the 
scream Avas ansAvered by a Avhistle from above, of a tone so 
clear and shrill that it Avas heard even amid the noise of the 
AA^aterfall. 

In this moment of terror and perplexity, a human face, black, 
and having grizzled hair hanging doAvn over the forehead and 
cheeks, and mixing Avith mustaches and a beard of the same 
colour, and as much matted and tangled, looked doAvn on them 
from a broken part of the rock above. 

‘ It is The Enemy ! ’ said the boy, who had very nearly 
become incapable of supporting Lady Staunton. 

‘ No, no,' she exclaimed, inaccessible to supernatural terrors, 


608 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


and restored to the presence of mind of which she had been 
deprived by the danger of her situation, ‘ it is a man. For God’s 
sake, my friend, help us ! ’ 

The face glared at them, but made no answer ; in a second 
or two afterwards, another, that of a young lad, appeared beside 
the first, equally swart and begrimed, but having tangled 
black hair, descending in elf locks, which gave an air of wild- | 
ness and ferocity to the whole expression of the countenance. : 
Lady Staunton repeated her entreaties, clinging to the rock 
with more energy, as she found that, from the superstitious 
terror of her guide, he became incapable of supporting her. ! 
Her words were probably drowned in the roar of the falling j 
stream, for, though she observed the lips of the younger being 
whom she supplicated move as he spoke in reply, not a word 
reached her ear. 

A moment afterw^ards it appeared he had not mistaken the 
nature of her supplication, which, indeed, was easy to be under- 
stood from her situation and gestures. The younger apparition 
disappeared, and immediately after lowered a ladder of twisted 
osiers, about eight feet in length, and made signs to David to 
hold it fast while the lady ascended. Despair gives courage, 
and finding herself in this fearful predicament. Lady Staunton 
did not hesitate to risk the ascent by the precarious means 
which this accommodation afforded ; and, carefully assisted by 
the person who had thus providentially come to her aid, she 
reached the summit in safety. She did not, however, even look 
around her until she saw her nephew lightly and actively follow 
her example, although there was now no one to hold the ladder j 
fast. When she saw him safe she looked round, and could not j 
help shuddering at the place and company in which she found I 
herself. | 

They were on a sort of platform of rock, surrounded on every 
side by precipices, or overhanging cliffs, and which it would have 
been scarce possible for any research to have discovered, as it 
did not seem to be commanded by any accessible position. It 
was partly covered by a huge fragment of stone, which, having 
fallen from the cliffs above, had been intercepted by others in 
its descent, and jammed so as to serve for a sloping roof to the 
further part of the broad shelf or platform on which they stood. 

A quantity of withered moss and leaves, strewed beneath this 
rude and wretched shelter, showed the lairs — they could not 
be termed the beds — of those who dwelt in this eyrie, for it de- 
served no other name. Of these, two were before Lady Staunton. 



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THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


509 


One, the same who had afforded such timely assistance, stood 
upright before them, a tall, lathy, young savage; his dress a 
tattered plaid and philabeg, no shoes, no stockings, no hat or 
bonnet, the place of the last being supplied by his hair, twisted 
and matted like the glihh of the ancient wild Irish, and, like 
theirs, forming a natural thickset, stout enough to bear off the 
cut of a sword. Yet the eyes of the lad w^ere keen and spark- 
ling ; his gesture free and noble, like that of all savages. He 
took little notice of David Butler, but gazed with wonder on 
Lady Staunton, as a being different probably in dress, and 
superior in beauty, to anything he had ever beheld. The old 
man whose face they had first seen remained recumbent in the 
same posture as when he had first looked down on them, only 
his face was turned towards them as he lay and looked up with 
a lazy and listless apathy, which belied the general expression 
of his dark and rugged features. He seemed a very tall man, 
but was scarce better clad than the younger. He had on a loose 
Lowland greatcoat, and ragged tartan trews or pantaloons. 

All around looked singularly wild and unpropitious. Beneath 
the brow of the incumbent rock was a charcoal fire, on which 
there was a still working, with bellows, pincers, hammers, a 
movable anvil, and other smiths’ tools ; three guns, with two 
or three sacks and barrels, were disposed against the wall of 
rock, under shelter of the superincumbent crag; a dirk and 
two swords, and a Lochaber axe, lay scattered around the fire, 
of which the red glare cast a ruddy tinge on the precipitous foam 
and mist of the cascade. The lad, when he had satisfied his 
curiosity with staring at Lady Staunton, fetched an earthen jar 
and a horn cup, into which he poured some spirits, apparently 
hot from the still, and offered them successively to the lady and 
to the boy. Both declined, and the young savage quaffed off 
the draught, which could not amount to less than three ordinary 
glasses. He then fetched another ladder from the corner of the 
cavern, if it could be termed so, adjusted it against the trans- 
verse rock, which served as a roof, and made signs for the lady 
to ascend it, while he held it fast below. She did so, and found 
herself on the top of a broad rock, near the brink of the chasm 
into which the brook precipitates itself. She could see the crest 
of the torrent flung loose down the rock, like the mane of a wild 
horse, but without having any view of the lower platform from 
which she had ascended. 

David was not suffered to mount so easily ; the lad, from 
sport or love of mischief, shook the ladder a good deal as be 


5.10 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


ascended, and seemed to enjoy the terror of young Butler ; so 
that, when they had both come up, they looked on each other 
with no friendly eyes. Neither, however, spoke. The young 
caird, or tinker, or gipsy, with a good deal of attention, assisted 
Lady Staunton up a very perilous ascent which she had still to 
encounter, and they were followed by David Butler, until all 
three stood clear of the ravine on the side of a mountain, whose 
sides were covered with heather and sheets of loose shingle. 
So narrow was the chasm out of which they ascended, that, 
unless when they were on the very verge, the eye passed to the 
other side without perceiving the existence of a rent so fearful, 
and nothing was seen of the cataract, though its deep hoarse 
voice was still heard. 

Lady Staunton, freed from the danger of rock and river, had 
now a new subject of anxiety. Her two guides confronted each 
other with angry countenances ; for David, though younger by 
two years at least, and much shorter, was a stout, well-set, and 
very bold boy. 

‘You are the black-coat’s son of Knock tarlitie,’ said the 
young caird ; ‘ if you come here again. I’ll pitch you down the 
linn like a foot-ball.’ 

‘Ay, lad, ye are very short to be sae lang,’ retorted young 
Butler, undauntedly, and measuring his opponent’s height with 
an undismayed eye. ‘ I am thinking you are a gillie of Black 
Donacha; if you come down the glen, we’ll shoot you like a 
wild buck.’ 

‘ You may tell your father,’ said the lad, ‘ that the leaf on 
the timber is the last he shall see ; we will hae amends for the 
mischief he has done to us.’ 

‘ I hope he will live to see mony simmers, and do ye muckle 
mair,’ answered David. 

More might have passed, but Lady Staunton stepped between 
them with her purse in her hand, and, taking out a guinea, of 
which it contained several, visible through the netwoidc, as well 
as some silver in the opposite end, offered it to the caird. 

‘The white siller, lady — the white siller,’ said the young 
savage, to whom the value of gold was probably unknown. 

Lady Staunton poured what silver she had into his hand, and 
the juvenile savage snatched it greedily, and made a sort of 
half inclination of acknowledgment and adieu. 

‘ Let us make haste now. Lady Staunton,’ said David, ‘ for 
there will be little peace with them since they hae seen your 
j)ursc.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


511 


They hurried on as fast as they could ; hut they had not 
descended the hill a hundred yards or two before they heard a 
halloo behind them, and looking back, saw both the old man 
and the young one pursuing them with great speed, the former 
with a gun on his shoulder. Very fortunately, at this moment 
a sportsman, a gamekeeper of the Duke, who was engaged in 
stalking deer, appeared on the face of the hill. The bandits 
stopped on seeing him, and Lady Staunton hastened to put her- 
self under his protection. He readily gave them his escort 
home, and it required his athletic form and loaded rifle to 
restore to the lady her usual confidence and courage. 

Donald listened with much gravity to the account of their 
adventure; and answered with great composure to David’s 
repeated inquiries, whether he could have suspected that the 
cairds had been lurking there — ‘ Inteed, Master Tavie, I might 
hae had some guess that they were there, or thereabout, though 
maybe I had nane. But I am aften on the hill ; and they are 
like wasps ; they stang only them that fashes them ; sae, for 
my part, I make a point not to see them, unless I were ordered 
out on the preceese errand by MacCallummore or Knockdunder, 
whilk is a clean different case.’ 

They reached the manse late ; and Lady Staunton, who had 
suffered much both from fright and fatigue, never again per- 
mitted her love of the picturesque to carry her so far among the 
mountains without a stronger escort than David, though she 
acknowledged he had won the stand of colours by the in- 
itrepidity he had displayed, so soon as assured he had to do with 
an earthly antagonist. ‘ I couldna maybe hae made muckle o’ 
a bargain wi’ yon lang callant,’ said David, when thus compli- 
mented on his valour ; ‘ but when ye deal wi’ thae folk, it’s 
tyne heart tyne a’.’ 


CHAPTER LI 


AVhat see you there, 

That hath so cowarded and chased your blood ! 

Out of appearance ? 

Henry V, 

We are under the necessity of returning to Edinburgh, where 
the General Assembly was now- sitting. It is well known that 
some Scottish nobleman is usually deputed as High Commis-' 
sioner, to represent the person of the king in this convocation ; 
that he has allowances for the purpose of maintaining a certain 
outward show and solemnity, and supporting the hospitality of 
the representative of Majesty. Whoever is distinguished by 
rank or office in or near the capital usually attends the morning 
levees of the Lord Commissioner, and walks with him in pro- 
cession to the place where the Assembly meets. 

The nobleman who held this office chanced to be particularly 
connected with Sir George Staunton, and it was in his train 
that he ventured to tread the High Street of Edinburgh for the 
first time since the fatal night of Porteous’s execution. Walk- 
ing at the right hand of the representative of Sovereignty, 
covered with lace and embroidery, and with all the parapher- 
nalia of wealth and rank, the handsome though wasted form of 
the English stranger attracted all eyes. Who could have recog- 
nised in a form so aristocratic the plebeian convict that, dis- 
guised in the rags of Madge Wildfire, had led the formidable 
rioters to their destined revenge? There was no possibility 
that this could happen, even if any of his ancient acquaintances, 
a race of men whose lives are so brief, had happened to survive 
the span commonly allotted to evil-doers. Besides, the whole 
affair had long fallen asleep, with the angry passions in which 
it originated. Nothing is more certain than that persons known 
to have had a share in that formidable riot, and to have fled 
from Scotland on that account, had made money abroad, re- 
turned to enjoy it in their native country, and lived and died 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


513 


undisturbed by the law.* The forbearance of the magistrate 
was in these instances wise, certainly, and just ; for what good 
impression could be made on the public mind by punishment, 
when the memory of the offence was obliterated, and all that 
was remembered was the recent inoffensive, or perhaps exem- 
plary, conduct of the offender? 

Sir George Staunton might, therefore, tread the scene of his 
former audacious exploits free from the apprehension of the 
law, or even of discovery or suspicion. But with what feelings 
his heart that day throbbed must be left to those of the reader 
to imagine. It was an object of no common interest which had 
brought him to encounter so many painful remembrances. 

In consequence of Jeanie’s letter to Lady Staunton, trans- 
mitting the confession, he had visited the town of Carlisle, and 
had found Archdeacon Fleming still alive, by whom that con- 
fession had been received. This reverend gentleman, whose 
character stood deseiwedly very high, he so far admitted into 
his confidence as to own himself the father of the unfortunate 
infant which had been spirited away by Madge Wildfire, repre- 
senting the intrigue as a matter of juvenile extravagance on his 
own part, for which he was now anxious to atone, by tracing, 
if possible, what had become of the child. After some recollec- 
tion of the circumstances, the clergyman was able to call to 
memory that the unhappy woman had written a letter to 
‘George Staunton, Esq., younger. Rectory, Willingham, by Gran- 
tham ’ ; that he had forwarded it to the address accordingly, 
and that it had been returned, with a note from the Reverend 
Mr. Staunton, Rector of Willingham, saying, he knew no such 
person as him to whom the letter was addressed. As this had 
happened just at the time when George had, for the last time, 
absconded from his father’s house to carry off Effie, he was at 
no loss to account for the cause of the resentment under the 
influence of which his father had disowned him. This was 
another instance in which his ungovernable temper had occa- 
sioned his misfortune ; had he remained at Willingham but a 
few days longer, he would have received Margaret Murdockson’s 
letter, in which was exactly described the person and haunts 

! of the woman, Annaple Bailzou, to whom she [Madge Wildfire] 
had parted with the infant. It appeared that Meg Murdockson 
had been induced to make this confession, less from any feelings 
I of contrition, than from the desire of obtaining, through George 
I Staunton or his father’s means, protection and support for her 
, * See Arnot’s Criminal Trials, 4to ed., p. 235. 

33 


VII 


514 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


daughter Madge. Her letter to George Staunton said, ‘ That 
while the writer lived, her daughter would have needed nought 
from anybody, and that she would never have meddled in these 
affairs, except to pay back the ill that George had done to her and 
hers. But she was to die, and her daughter would be destitute, 
and without reason to guide her. She had lived in the world 
long enough to know that people did nothing for nothing ; so she 
had told George Staunton all he could wish to know about his 
wean, in hopes he would not see the demented young creature 
he had ruined perish for want. As for her motives for not 
telling them sooner, she had a long account to reckon for in 
the next world, and she would reckon for that too.’ 

The clergyman said that Meg had died in the same desperate 
state of mind, occasionally expressing some regret about the 
child which was lost, but oftener sorrow that the mother had 
not been hanged — her mind at once a chaos of guilt, rage, and 
apprehension for her daughter’s future safety ; that instinctive 
feeling of parental anxiety which she had in common with the 
she-wolf and lioness being the last shade of kindly affection 
that occupied a breast equally savage. 

The melancholy catastrophe of Madge Wildfire was occa- 
sioned by her taking the confusion of her mother’s execution 
as affording an opportunity of leaving the workhouse to which 
the clergyman had sent her, and presenting herself to the mob 
in their fury, to perish in the way w^e have already seen. When 
Dr. Fleming found the convict’s letter w'as returned from 
Lincolnshire, he wrote to a friend in Edinburgh, to inquire into 
the fate of the unfortunate girl whose child had been stolen, 
and was informed by his correspondent that she had been 
pardoned, and that, with all her family, she had retired to some 
distant part of Scotland, or left the kingdom entirely. And 
here the matter rested, until, at Sir George Staunton’s applica- 
tion, the clergyman looked out and produced Margaret Murdock- 
son’s returned letter, and the other memoranda which he had 
kept concerning the affair. 

Whatever might be Sir George Staunton’s feelings in ripping 
up this miserable history, and listening to the tragical fate of 
the unhappy girl whom he had ruined, he had so much of his 
ancient wilfulness of disposition left as to shut his eyes on 
everything save the prospect which seemed to open itself of 
recovering his son. It was tme, it would be difficult to produce 
him without telling much more of the history of his birth and 
the misfortunes of his parents than it was prudent to make 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


515 


known. But let him once be found, and, being found, let him 
but prove worthy of his father’s protection, and many ways 
might be fallen upon to avoid such risk. Sir George Staunton 
was at liberty to adopt him as his heir, if he pleased, without 
communicating the secret of his birth ; or an Act of Parliament 
might be obtained, declaring him legitimate, and allowing him 
the name and arms of his father. He was, indeed, already a 
legitimate child according to the law of Scotland, by the sub- 
sequent marriage of his parents. Wilful in everything. Sir 
George’s sole desire now was to see this son, even should his 
recovery bring with it a new series of misfortunes as dreadful 
as those which followed on his being lost. 

But where was the youth who might eventually be called 
to the honours and estates of this ancient family ? On what 
heath was he wandering, and shrouded by what mean disguise ? 
Did he gain his precarious bread by some petty trade, by menial 
toil, by violence, or by theft ? These were questions on which 
Sir George’s anxious investigations could obtain no light. 
Many remembered that Annaple Bailzou wandered through the 
I country as a beggar and fortune-teller, or spae-wife ; some remem- 
I bered that she had been seen with an infant in 1737 or 1738, but 
for more than ten years she had not travelled that district, and 
that she had been heard to say she was going to a distant part 
of Scotland, of which country she was a native. To Scotland, 
therefore, came Sir George Staunton, having parted with his 
lady at Glasgow ; and his arrival at Edinburgh happening to 
coincide with the sitting of the General Assembly of the Kirk, 
his acquaintance witlj the nobleman who held the office of Lord 
High Commissioner forced him more into public than suited 
! either his views or inclinations. 

At the public table of this nobleman. Sir George Staunton 
was placed next to a clergyman of respectable appearance, and 
well-bred though plain demeanour, whose name he discovered 
to be Butler. It had been no part of Sir George’s plan to take 
jhis brother-in-law into his confidence, and he had rejoiced 
'exceedingly in the assurances he received from his wife that 
•Mrs. Butler, the very soul of integrity and honour, had never 

! suffered the account he had given of himself at Willingham 
Rectory to transpire, even to her husband. But he was not 
sorry to have an opportunity to converse with so near a con- 
;nexion, without being known to him, and to form a judgment 
[iof his character and understanding. He saw much, and heard 
- more, to raise Butler very* high in his opinion. He found he 


516 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


was generally respected by those of his own profession, as well 
as by the laity who had seats in the Assembly. He had made 
several public appearances in the Assembly, distinguished by 
good sense, candour, and ability ; and he was followed and ad- 
mired as a sound, and at the same time an eloquent, preacher. 

This was all very satisfactory to Sir George Staunton’s pride, 
which had revolted at the idea of his wife’s sister being ob- 
scurely married. He now began, on the contrary, to think the 
connex.ion so much better than he expected, that, if it should 
be necessary to acknowledge it, in consequence of the recovery 
of his son, it would sound well enough that Lady Staunton 
had a sister who, in the decayed state of the family, had 
married a Scottish clergyman, high in the opinion of his country- 
men, and a leader in the church. 

It was with these feelings that, when the Lord High Com- 
missioner’s company broke up, Sir George Staunton, under pre- 
tence of prolonging some inquiries concerning the constitution 
of the Church of Scotland, requested Butler to go home to his 
lodgings in the Lawnmarket, and drink a cup of coffee. Butler 
agreed to wait upon him, providing Sir George wotild permit 
him, in passing, to call at a friend’s house where he resided, 
and make his apology for not coming to partake her tea. 
They proceeded up the High Street, entered the Krames, and 
passed the begging-box, placed to remind those at liberty of the 
distresses of the poor prisoners. Sir George paused there one 
instant, and next day a <£20 note was found in that receptacle 
for public charity. 

When he came up to Butler again, he found him with his ! 
eyes fixed on the entrance of the tolbooth, and apparently in 
deep thought. | 

‘ That seems a very strong door,’ said Sir George, by way of | 
saying something. ' 

‘ It is so, sir,’ said Butler, turning off and beginning to walk 
forward, ‘ but it was my misfortune at one time to see it prove I 
greatly too weak.’ ,! 

At this moment, looking at his companion, he asked him I 
whether he felt himself ill ; and Sir George Staunton admitted 
that he had been so foolish as to eat ice, which sometimes dis- ' 
agreed with him. With kind officiousness, that would not be I 
gainsaid, and ere he could find out where he was going, Butler | 
hurried Sir George into the friend’s house, near to the prison, ^ 
in which he himself had lived since he came to town, being, I 
indeed, no other than that of our old friend Bartoline Saddle- ! 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


517 


tree, in which Lady Staunton had served a short noviciate as 
a shop-maid. This recollection rushed on her husband’s mind, 
and the blush of shame which it excited overpoAvered the sensa- 
tion of fear which had produced his former paleness. Good 
1 Mrs. Saddletree, Imwever, bustled about to receive the rich 
English baronet as the friend of Mr. Butler, and requested an 
elderly female in a black gOAvn to sit still, in a Avay Avhich seemed 
to imply a wish that she would clear the way for her betters. 
In the meanwhile, understanding the state of the case, she ran 
I to get some cordial waters, sovereign, of course, in all cases of 
faintishness whatsoever. During her absence, her visitor, the 
female in black, made some progress out of the room, and 
might have left it altogether without particular obserA^ation, 
had she not stumbled at the threshold, so near Sir George 
Staunton that he, in point of civility, raised her and assisted 
her to the door. 

‘ Mrs. Porteous is turned very doited noAv, puir body,’ said 
I Mrs. Saddletree, as she returned with her bottle in her hand. 
‘She is no sae auld, but she got a sair back -cast Avi’ the 
slaughter o’ her husband. Ye had some trouble about that 
job, Mr. Butler. I think, sir (to Sir George), ye had better 
I drink out the haill glass, for to my een ye look Avaur than 
Avhen ye came in.’ 

I And, indeed, he grew as pale as a corpse on recollecting 
I Avho it Avas that his arm had so lately supported — the AvidoAv 
Avhom he had so large a share in making such, 
i ‘It is a prescribed job that case of 'Porteous uoaa',’ said old 
Saddletree, who was cdnfined to his chair by the gout — ‘ clean 
prescribed and out of date.’ 

‘ I am not clear of that, neighbour,’ said Plumdamas, ‘ for 
I have heard them say tAventy years should rin, and this is 
but the fifty-ane ; Porteous’s mob was in thretty-seven.’ 

‘Ye’ll no teach me laAv, I think, neighbour — me that has 
four gaun pleas, and might hae had fourteen, an it hadna been 
the gudewife ? I tell ye, if the foremost of the Porteous mob 
Avere standing there Avhere that gentleman stands, the King’s 
Advocate wadna meddle Avi’ him : it fa’s under the negative 
prescription.’ 

‘ Hand your din, carles,’ said Mrs. Saddletree, ‘ and let the 
gentleman sit down and get a dish of comfortable tea.’ 

But Sir George had had quite enough of their conversation ; 
and Butler, at his request, made an apology to Mrs. Saddletree, 
and accompanied him to his lodgings. Here they found another 


618 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


guest waiting Sir George Staunton’s return. This was no other 
than our reader’s old acquaintance, Ratcliffe. 

This man had exercised the office of turnkey with so much 
vigilance, acuteness, and fidelity that he gradually rose to be 
governor or captain of the tolbooth. And it is yet remem- 
bered in tradition, that young men who rather sought amusing 
than select society in their merry-meetings used sometimes to 
request Ratclifie’s company, in order that he might regale them 
with legends of his extraordinary feats in the way of robbery 
and escape.* But he lived and died without resuming his 
original vocation, otherwise than in his narratives over a bottle. 

Under these circumstances, he had been recommended to 
Sir George Staunton by a man of the law in Edinburgh, as a 
person likely to answer any questions he might have to ask 
about Annaple Bailzou, who, according to the colour which Sir 
George Staunton gave to his cause of inquiry, was supposed to 
have stolen a child in the west of England, belonging to a 
family in which he was interested. The gentleman had not 
mentioned his name, but only his official title ; so that Sir 
George Staunton, when told that the captain of the tolbooth 
was waiting for him in his parlour, had no idea of meeting 
his former acquaintance, Jem Ratcliffe. 

This, therefore, was another new and most unpleasant sur- 
prise, for he had no difficulty in recollecting this man’s remark- 
able features. The change, however, from George Robertson 
to Sir George Staunton baffled even the penetration of Rat- 
cliffe, and he bowed very low to the baronet and his guest, 
hoping Mr. Butler Avould excuse his recollecting that he was 
an old acquaintance. 

‘And once rendered my wife a piece of great service,’ said 
Mr. Butler, ‘for which she sent you a token of grateful ac- 
knowledgment, which I hope came safe and was welcome.’ 

‘ Deil a doubt on’t,’ said Ratcliffe, with a knowing nod ; 
‘but ye are muckle changed for the better since I saw ye, 
Maister Butler.’ 

‘ So much so, that I wonder you knew me.’ 

‘ Aha, then ! Deil a face I see I ever forget,’ said Ratcliffe ; 
while Sir George Staunton, tied to the stake and incapable of 
escaping, internally cursed the accuracy of his memory. ‘ And 
yet, sometimes,’ continued Ratcliffe, ‘the sharpest hand will be 
taen in. There is a face in this very room, if I might presume 
to be sae bauld, that if I didna ken the honourable person it 

* See Ratcliffe. Note 37. 


THE HEART OE MIDLOTHIAN 


619 


belangs to, I might think it had some cast of an auld ac- 
quaintance.’ 

‘I should not be much flattered,’ answered the Baronet, 
sternly, and roused by the risk in which he saw himself placed, 
‘if it is to me you mean to apply that compliment.’ 

‘ By no manner of means, sir,’ said Ratcliffe, bowing very 
low ; ‘ I am come to receive your honour’s commands, and no 
to trouble your honour wi’ my poor observations.’ 

‘Well, sir,’ said Sir George, ‘I am told you understand 
police matters ; so do I ; to convince you of which, here are 
ten guineas of retaining fee j I make them fifty when you can 
find me certain notice of a person, living or dead, whom you 
will find described in that paper. I shall leave town presently ; 

I you may send your written answer to me to the care of Mr. 

I (naming his highly respectable agent), or of his Grace 

: the Lord High Commissioner.’ 

I Ratcliffe bowed and withdrew. 

I ‘ I have angered the proud peat now,’ he said to himself, 
‘ by finding out a likeness ; but if George Robertson’s father 
had lived within a mile of his mother, d — n me if I should not 
know what to think, for as high as he carries his head.’ 

When he was left alone with Butler, Sir George Staunton 
ordered tea and coffee, which were brought by his valet, and 
then, after considering with himself for a minute, asked his 
; guest whether he had lately heard from his wife and family. 

Butler, with some surprise at the question, replied, ‘ That he 
had received no letter for some time ; his wife was a poor pen- 
woman.’ 

‘ Then,’ said Sir George Staunton, ‘ I am the first to inform 
you there has been an invasion of your quiet premises since 
you left home. My wife, whom the Duke of Argyle had the 
goodness to permit to use Roseneath Lodge, while she was 
spending some weeks in your country, has sallied across and 
taken up her quarters in the manse, as she says, to be nearer 
the goats, whose milk she is using ; but I believe, in reality, 
because she prefers Mrs. Butler’s company to that of the respect- 
able gentleman who acts as seneschal on the Duke’s domains.’ 

Mr. Butler said, ‘ He had often heard the late Duke and the 
present speak with high respect of Lady Staunton, and was 
happy if his house could accommodate any friend of theirs; it 
would be but a very slight acknowledgment of the many favours 
he owed them.’ 

‘ That does not make Lady Staunton and myself the less 


520 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


obliged to your hospitality, sir,’ said Sir George. ‘ May I inquire 
if you think of returning home soon T 

‘ In the course of two days,’ Mr. Butler answered, ‘ his duty 
in the Assembly would be ended ; and the other matters he 
had in town being all finished, he was desirous of returning to 
Dunbartonshire as soon as he could ; but he was under the 
necessity of transporting a considerable sum in bills and money 
with him, and therefore wished to travel in company with one 
or two of his brethren of the clergy.’ 

‘My escort will be more safe,’ said Sir George Staunton, 

‘ and I think of setting off to-morrow or next day. If you will 
give me the pleasure of your company, I will undertake to 
deliver you and your charge safe at the manse, provided you 
wdll admit me along with you.’ 

Mr. Butler gratefully accepted of this proposal ; the appoint- i 
ment was made accordingly, and by despatches with one of Sir | 
George’s servants, who was sent forward for the purpose, the 
inhabitants of the manse of Knocktarlitie were made acquainted 
with the intended journey; and the news rung through the 
whole vicinity, ‘ that the minister was coming back wi’ a braw 
English gentleman, and a’ the siller that was to pay for the 
estate of Craigsture.’ 

This sudden resolution of going to Knocktarlitie had been 
adopted by Sir George Staunton in consequence of the incidents 
of the evening. In spite of his present consequence, he felt he 
had presumed too far in venturing so near the scene of his 
former audacious acts of violence, and he knew too well from 
past experience the acuteness of a man like Ratcliffe again to 
encounter him. The next two days he kept his lodgings, under 
pretence of indisposition, and took leave, by writing, of his 
noble friend, the High Commissioner, alleging the opportunity 
of Mr. Butler’s company as a reason for leaving Edinburgh 
sooner than he had proposed. He had a long conference with 
his agent on the subject of Annaple Bailzou ; and the pro- 
fessional gentleman, who was the agent also of the Argyle 
family, had directions to collect all the information which Rat- 
cliffe or others might be able to obtain concerning the fate of 
that woman and the unfortunate child, and, so soon as any- 
thing transpired which had the least appearance of being 
important, that he should send an express with it instantly to 
Knocktarlitie. These instructions were backed with a deposit 
of money, and a request that no expense might be spared ; 
so that Sir George Staunton had little reason to apprehend 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


521 


negligence on the part of the persons entrusted with the 
commission. 

The journey which the brothers made in company was 
attended with more pleasure, even to Sir George Staunton, 
than he had ventured to expect. His heart lightened in spite 
of himself when they lost sight of Edinburgh ; and the easy, 
sensible conversation of Butler was well calculated to withdraw 
his thoughts from painful reflections. He even began to think 
whether there could be much difiiculty in removing his wife’s 
connexions to the rectory of Willingham ; it was only on his 
part procuring some still better preferment for the present 
incumbent, and on Butler’s, that he should take orders accord- 
ing to the English Church, to which he could not conceive a 
possibility of his making objection, and then he had them 
residing under his wing. No doubt, there was pain in seeing 
Mrs. Butler, acquainted, as he knew her to be, with the full 
I truth of his evil history. But then her silence, though he had 
‘ no reason to complain of her indiscretion hitherto, was still 
I more absolutely ensured. It would keep his lady, also, both 
I in good temper and in more subjection; for she was sometimes 
troublesome to him, by insisting on remaining in town when 
he desired to retire to the country, alleging the total want of 
society at Willingham. ‘ Madam, your sister is there,’ would, 
he thought, be a sufficient answer to this ready argument. 

He sounded Butler on this subject, asking what he would 
think of an English living of twelve hundred pounds yearly, 
with the burden of afibrding his company now and then to a 
neighbour whose health was not strong, or his spirits equal. 
‘He might meet,’ he said, ‘occasionally, a very learned and 
i accomplished gentleman, who was in orders as a Catholic priest, 
but he hoped that would be no insurmountable objection to a 
man of his liberality of sentiment. What,’ he said, ‘would 
Mr. Butler think of as an answer, if the offer should be made 
ito him V 

I ‘ Simply, that I could not accept of it,’ said Mr. Butler. ‘ I 
lihave no mind to enter into the various debates between the 
churches; but I was brought up in mine own, have received 
her ordination, am satisfied of the truth of her doctrines, and 
will die under the banner I have enlisted to.’ 

‘What may be the value of your preferment?’ said Sir 
George Staunton, ‘ unless I am asking an indiscreet question.’ 

‘Probably one hundred a -year, one year with another, 
besides my glebe and pasture-ground.’ 




622 


WAVEHLEY NOVELS 


‘And you scruple to exchange that for twelve hundred 
a -year, without alleging any damning difference of doctrine 
betwixt the two churches of England and Scotland ? ’ 

‘ On that, sir, I have reserved my judgment ; there may be 
much good, and there are certainly saving means, in both, but 
every man must act according to his own lights. I hope I have 
done, and am in the course of doing, my Master’s work in this 
Highland parish ; and it would ill become me, for the sake of 
lucre, to leave my sheep in the wilderness. But, even in the 
temporal view which you have taken of the matter. Sir George, 
this hundred pounds a-year of stipend hath fed and clothed us, 
and left us nothing to wish for ; my father-in-law’s succession, i 
and other circumstances, have added a small estate of about 
twice as much more, and how we are to dispose of it I do not 
know. So I leave it to you, sir, to think if I were wise, not 
having the wish or opportunity of spending three hundred 
a-year, to covet the possession of four times that sum.’ 

‘ This is philosophy,’ said Sir George ; ‘ I have heard of it, 
but I never saw it before.’ 

‘It is common sense,’ replied Butler, ‘which accords with 
philosophy and religion more frequently than pedants or zealots 
are apt to admit.’ 

Sir George turned the subject, and did not again resume it. 
Although they travelled in Sir George’s chariot, he seemed so j 
much fatigued with the motion, that it was necessary for him i 
to remain for a day at a small town called Mid-Calder, which ! 
was their first stage from Edinburgh. Glasgow occupied another j 
day, so slow were their motions. I 

They travelled on to Dunbarton, where they had resolved 
to leave the equipage, ‘and to hire a boat to take them to the 
shores near the manse, as the Gare Loch lay betwixt them and 
that point, besides the impossibility of travelling in that district 
with wheel-carriages. Sir George’s valet, a man of trust, accom- 
panied them, as also a footman ; the grooms were left with the 
carriage. Just as this arrangement was completed, which was 
about four o’clock in the afternoon, an express arrived from Sir 
George’s agent in Edinburgh, with a packet, which he opened 
and read with great attention, appearing much interested and 
agitated by the contents. The packet had been despatched 
very soon after their leaving Edinburgh, but the messenger 
had missed the travellers by passing through Mid-Calder in the 
night, and overshot his errand by getting to Eoseneath before 
them. He was now on his return, after having waited more 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


523 


than four -and -twenty hours. Sir George Staunton instantly 
wrote back an answer, and, rewarding the messenger liberally, 
desired him not to sleep till he placed it in his agent’s hands. 

At length they embarked in the boat, which had waited for 
them some time. During their voyage, which was slow, for 
they were obliged to row the whole way, and often against the 
tide. Sir George Staunton’s inquiries ran chiefly on the subject 
of the Highland banditti who had infested that country since 
the year 1745. Butler informed him that many of them were 
not native Highlanders, but gipsies, tinkers, and other men of 
desperate fortunes, who had taken advantage of the confusion 
introduced by the civil war, the general discontent of the 
mountaineers, and the unsettled state of police, to practise 
their plundering trade with more audacity. Sir George next 
inquired into their lives, their habits, whether the violences 
which they committed were not sometimes atoned for by acts 
of generosity, and whether they did not possess the virtues, as 
well as the vices, of savage tribes. 

Butler answered, that certainly they did sometimes show 
sparks of generosity, of which even the worst class of male- 
factors are seldom utterly divested ; but that their evil pro- 
pensities were certain and regular principles of action, while 
any occasional burst of virtuous feeling was only a transient 
impulse not to be reckoned upon, and excited probably by some 
singular and unusual concatenation of circumstances. In dis- 
cussing these inquiries, which Sir George pursued with an 
apparent eagerness that rather surprised Butler, the latter 
chanced to mention the name of Donacha Dhu na Dunaigh, 
with which the reader is already acquainted. Sir George caught 
the sound up eagerly, and as if it conveyed particular interest 
to his ear. He made the most minute inquiries concerning the 
man whom he mentioned, the number of his gang, and even 
the appearance of those who belonged to it. Upon these points 
Butler could give little answer. The man had a name among 
the lower class, but his exploits were considerably exaggerated ; 
he had always one or two fellows with him, but never aspired 
to the command of above three or foi^r. In short, he knew 
little about him, and the small acquaintance he had, had by 
no means inclined him to desire more. 

‘ Nevertheless, I should like to see him some of these days.’ 

I ‘That would be a dangerous meeting. Sir George, unless 
1 you mean we are to see him receive his deserts from tlie law, 
land then it were a melancholy one.’ 

i 


524 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘Use every man according to his deserts, Mr. Butler, and 
who shall escape w’^hipping ? But I am talking riddles to you. 

I will explain them more fully to you when I have spoken over 
the subject with Lady Staunton. Pull away, my lads,’ he 
added, addressing himself to the row'ers ; ‘ the clouds threaten 
us wdth a storm.’ 

In fact, the dead and heavy closeness of the air, the huge 
piles of clouds which assembled in the ■western horizon, and 
glowed like a furnace under the influence of the setting sun, 
that awful stillness in which nature seems to expect the 
thunderburst, as a condemned soldier waits for the platoon-fire 
which is to stretch him on the earth — all betokened a speedy 
storm. Large broad drops fell from time to time, and induced 
the gentlemen to assume the boat -cloaks; but the rain again 
ceased, and the oppressive heat, so unusual in Scotland in the 
end of May, inclined them to throw them aside. ‘There is 
something solemn in this delay of the storm,’ said Sir George ; 
‘it seems as if it suspended its peal till it solemnised some 
important event in the world below.’ 

‘ Alas ! ’ replied Butler, ‘ what are we, that the la-ws of nature 
should correspond in their march with our ephemeral deeds or 
sufferings ? The clouds will burst when surcharged with the 
electric fluid, whether a goat is falling at that instant from the 
cliffs of Arran or a hero expiring on the field of battle he has 
w^on.’ 

‘ The mind delights to deem it otherwise,’ said Sir George 
Staunton ; ‘ and to dw^ell on the fate of humanity as on that 
which is the prime central movement of the mighty machine. 
We love not to think that we shall mix with the ages that have 
gone before us, as these broad black raindrops mingle with the 
w^aste of waters, making a trifling and momentary eddy, and 
are then lost for ever.’ 

^For ever! We are not — we cannot be lost for ever,’ said 
Butler, looking upward ; ‘ death is to us change, not consum- 
mation, and the commencement of a new' existence, correspond- ■ 
ing in character to the deeds which w'e have done in the body.’ 

While they agitated these grave subjects, to wiiich the 
solemnity of the approaching storm naturally led them, their 
voyage threatened to be more tedious than they expected, for > 
gusts of wind, w'hich rose and fell with sudden impetuosity, 
swept the bosom of the firth, and impeded the efforts of the 
rowers. They had now only to double a small headland in 
order to get to the proper landing-place in the mouth of the , 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


525 


little river ; but in the state of the weather, and the boat being 
heavy, this was like to be a work of time, and in the meanwhile 
they must necessarily be exposed to the storm. 

‘ Could we not land on this side of the headland,’ asked Sir 
George, ‘ and so gain some shelter ? ’ 

Butler knew of no landing-place, at least none affording a 
convenient or even practicable passage up the rocks which sur- 
rounded the shore. 

‘ Think again,’ said Sir George Staunton ; ‘ the storm will 
soon be violent.’ 

‘Hout, ay,’ said one of the boatmen, ‘there’s the Caird’s 
Cove ; but we dinna tell the minister about it, and I am no 
sure if I can steer the boat to it, the bay is sae fu’ o’ shoals and 
sunk rocks.’ 

‘Try,’ said Sir George, ‘and I will give you half-a-guinea.’ 

The old fellow took the helm, and observed, ‘ That if they 
could get in, there was a steep path up from the beach, and 
half an hour’s walk from thence to the manse.’ 

‘ Are you sure you know the way ? ’ said Butler to the old 
man. 

‘ I maybe kenn’d it a wee better fifteen years syne, when 
Dandie Wilson was in the firth wi’ his clean-ganging lugger. 
I mind Dandie had a wild young Englisher wi’ him, that they 
ca’d ’ 

‘If you chatter so much,’ said Sir George Staunton, ‘you 
will have the boat on the Grindstone ; bring that white rock 
in a line with the steeple.’ 

‘ By G — ,’ said the veteran, staring, ‘ I think your honour 
kens the bay as weel as me. Your honour’s nose has been on 
the Grindstane ere now, I’m thinking.’ 

As they spoke thus, they approached the little cove, which, 
concealed behind crags, and defended on every point by shallows 
and sunken rocks, could scarce be discovered or approached, 
except by those intimate with the navigation. An old shattered 
boat was already drawn up on the beach within the cove, close 
beneath the trees, and -with precautions for concealment. 

Upon observing this vessel, Butler remarked to his com- 
panion, ‘ It is impossible for you to conceive. Sir George, the 
difficulty I have had with my poor people, in teaching them 
the guilt and the danger of this contraband trade ; yet they 
have perpetually before their eyes all its dangerous consequences. 
I do not know anything that more effectually depraves and 
ruins their moral and religious principles.’ 


I 


526 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Sir George forced himself to say something in a low voice, 
about the spirit of adventure natural to youth, and that un- 
questionably many would become wiser as they grew older. 

‘ Too seldom, sir,’ replied Butler. ‘ If they have been deeply 
engaged, and especially if they have mingled in the scenes of 
violence and blood to which their occupation naturally leads, 

I have observed that, sooner or later, they come to an evil 
end. Experience, as well as Scripture, teaches us. Sir George, ; 
that mischief shall hunt the violent man, and that the blood- j 
thirsty man shall not live half his days. But take my arm to | 
help you ashore.’ | 

Sir George needed assistance, for he was contrasting in his || 
altered thought the different feelings of mind and frame with j 
which he had formerly frequented the same place. As they I 
landed, a low growl of thunder was heard at a distance. 

‘ That is ominous, Mr. Butler,’ said Sir George. 

^ Intonuit IcBvum : it is ominous of good, then,’ answered 
Butler, smiling. 

The boatmen were ordered to make the best of their way 
round the headland to the ordinary landing-place; the two 
gentlemen, followed by their servant, sought their way by a 
blind and tangled path, through a close copsewood, to the manse 
of Knocktarlitie, where their arrival was anxiously expected. 

The sisters in vain had expected their husbands’ return on 
the preceding day, which was that appointed by Sir George’s 
letter. The delay of the travellers at Calder had occasioned 
this breach of appointment. The inhabitants of the manse 
began even to doubt whether they would arrive on the present 
day. Lady Staunton felt this hope of delay as a brief reprieve ; | 
for she dreaded the pangs which her husband’s pride must 
undergo at meeting with a sister-in-law to whom the whole of | 
his unhappy and dishonourable history was too well known, j 
She knew, whatever force or constraint he might put upon his 
feelings in public, that she herself must be doomed to see them 
display themselves in full vehemence in secret — consume his 
health, destroy his temper, and render him at once an object of 
dread and compassion. Again and again she cautioned Jeanie 
to display no tokens of recognition, but to receive him as a 
perfect stranger, and again and again Jeanie renewed her , 
promise to comply with her wishes. 

Jeanie herself could not fail to bestow an anxious thought I 
on the awkwardness of the approaching meeting ; but her con- I 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


527 


science was ungalled, and then she was cumbered with many 
household cares of an unusual nature, which, joined to the 
anxious wish once more to see Butler, after an absence of un- 
usual length, made her extremely desirous that the travellers 
should arrive as soon as possible. And — why should I disguise 
the truth ? — ever and anon a thought stole across her mind that 
I her gala dinner had now been postponed for two days ; and 
i how few of the dishes, after every art of her simple cuisine had 
been exerted to dress them, could with any credit or propriety 
appear again upon the third ; and what was she to do with the 
rest ? Upon this last subject she was saved the trouble of 
farther deliberation, by the sudden appearance of the Captain 
at the head of half a dozen stout fellows, dressed and armed 
in the Highland fashion. 

‘ Goot-morrow morning to ye, Leddy Staunton, and I hope I 
ji hae the pleasure to see ye weel % And goot-morrow to you, goot 
I Mrs. Putler ; I do peg you will order some victuals and ale and 
prandy for the lads, for we hae peen out on firth and moor 
since afore daylight, and a’ to no purpose neither — Cot tarn ! ’ 

So saying, he sate down, pushed back his brigadier wig, and 
‘ wiped his head with an air of easy importance, totally regard- 
less of the look of well-bred astonishment by which Lady 
Staunton endeavoured to make him comprehend that he was 
assuming too great a liberty. 

‘ It is some comfort, when one has had a sair tussle,’ con- 
tinued the Captain, addressing^ Lady Staunton, with an air of 
gallantry, ‘ that it is in a fair leddy’s service, or in the service of 
a gentleman whilk has a fair leddy, whilk is the same thing, 
i since serving the husband is serving the wife, as Mrs. Putler 
does very weel know.’ 

j ‘ Really, sir,’ said Lady Staunton, ‘ as you seem to intend 
this compliment for me, I am at a loss to know what interest 
Sir George or I can have in your movements this morning.’ 

‘ 0 Cot tarn ! this is too cruel, my leddy ; as if it was not 
py special express from his Grace’s honourable agent and com- 
missioner at Edinburgh, with a warrant conform, that I was to 
seek for and apprehend Donacha Dhu na Dunaigh, and pring him 
pefore myself and Sir George Staunton, that he may have his 
deserts, that is to say, the gallows, whilk he has doubtless 
deserved, py peing the means of frightening your leddyship, as 
weel as for something of less importance.’ 

‘ Frightening me ! ’ said her ladyship. ‘ Why, I never wrote 
jto Sir George about my alarm at the waterfall.’ 


528 


WAVERLEY T^OVELS 


‘ Then he must have heard it otherwise ; for what else can 
give him sic an earnest tesire to see this rapscallion, that I 
maun ripe the haill mosses and muirs in the country for him, 
as if I were to get something for finding him, when the pest o’t 
might pe a pall through my prains 1 ’ 

‘Can it be really true that it is on Sir George’s account 
that you have been attempting to apprehend this fellow ? ’ 

‘ Py Cot, it is for no other cause that I know than his 
honour’s pleasure ; for the creature might hae gone on in a 
decent quiet way for me, sae lang as he respectit the Duke’s 
pounds ; put reason goot he suld be taen, and hangit to poot, 
if it may pleasure ony honourable shentleman that is the 
Duke’s friend. Sae I got the express over night, and I caused 
warn half a score of pretty lads, and was up in the morning 
pefore the sun, and I garr’d the lads take their kilts and short 
coats.’ 

‘ I wonder you did that. Captain,’ said Mrs. Butler, ‘ when 
you know the Act of Parliament against wearing the Highland 
dress.’ 

‘ Hout, tout, ne’er fash your thumb, Mrs. Putler. The law 
is put twa- three years auld yet, and is ower young to hae 
come our length ; and, pesides, how is the lads to climb the 
praes wi’ thae tamn’d breekens on them ? It makes me sick to 
see them. Put ony how, I thought I kenn’d Donacha’s haunts 
gay and weel, and I was at the place where he had rested 
yestreen ; for I saw the leaves the limmers had lain on, and 
the ashes of them ; by the same token, there was a pit greeshoch 
purning yet. I am thinking they got some word out o’ the 
island what was intended. I sought every glen and clench, as if 
I had been deer-stalking, but teil a wauff of his coat-tail could 
I see — Cot tarn ! ’ 

‘ He’ll be away down the firth to Cowall,’ said David ; and 
Reuben, who had been out early that morning a -nutting, 
observed, ‘ That he had seen a boat making for the Caird’s 
Cove’; a place well knoAvn to the boys, though their less; 
adventurous father was ignorant of its existence. 5 

‘Py Cot,’ said Duncan, ‘then I will stay here no longer 
than to trink this very horn of prandy and water, for it is very 
possible they will pe in the wood. Donacha’s a clever fellow, 
and maype thinks it pest to sit next the chimley when the lum 
reeks. He thought naebody would look for him sae near hand ! 

I peg your leddyship will excuse my aprupt departure, as I will 
return forthwith, and I will either pring you Donacha in life 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


529 


or else his head, whilk I dare to say will be as satisfactory. 
And I hope to pass a pleasant evening with your leddyship ; 
and I hope to have mine revenges on Mr. Putler at pack- 
gammon, for the four pennies whilk he won, for he will pe 
surely at home soon, or else he will have a wet journey, seeing 
it is apout to pe a scud.’ 

Thus saying, with many scrapes and bows, and apologies for 
leaving them, which were very readily received, and reiterated 
assurances of his speedy return, of the sincerity whereof Mrs. 
Butler entertained no doubt, so long as her best greybeard of 
brandy was upon duty, Duncan left the manse, collected his 
followers, and began to scour the close and entangled wood 
which lay between the little glen and the Caird’s Cove. David, 
who was a favourite with the Captain, on account of his spirit 
and courage, took the opportunity of escaping to attend the 
investigations of that great man. 


VII 


34 


CHAPTER LII 


I did send for thee, 

' That Talbot’s name might be in thee revived, j 

When sapless age and weak unable limbs i 

Should bring thy father to his drooping chair. 

But — 0 malignant and ill-boding stars ! — 

Henry VI. Part I. 

Duncan and his party had not proceeded very far in the : 
direction of the Caird’s Cove before they heard a shot, which 
was quickly followed by one or two others. ‘ Some tamn’d 
villains among the roe-deer,’ said Duncan; ‘look sharp out, lads.’ 

The clash of swords was next heard, and Duncan and his myr- | 
midons, hastening to the spot, found Butler and Sir George Staun- I 
ton’s servant in the hands of four ruffians. Sir George himself \ 
lay stretched on the ground, with his drawn sword in his hand. 
Duncan, who was as brave as a lion, instantly fired his pistol at 
the leader of the band, unsheathed his sword, cried out to his men, 

‘ Claymore ! ’ and run his w^eapon through the body of the fellow 
whom he had previously wounded, who was no other than Don- 
acha Dhu na Dunaigh himself. The other banditti were speedily 
overpowered, excepting one young lad, who made wonderful 
resistance for his years, and was at length secured with difficulty. 

Butler, so soon as he was liberated from the ruffians, ran to 
raise Sir George Staunton ; but life had wholly left him. 

‘A creat misfortune,’ said Duncan; ‘I think it will pe pest 
that I go forward to intimate it to the coot leddy. Tavie, my 
dear, you hae smelled pouther for the first time this day. Take 
my sword and hack off* Donacha’s head, whilk will pe coot 
practice for you against the time you may wish to do the same 
kindness to a living shentleman ; or hould, as your father does 
not approve, you may leave it alone, as he will pe a greater 
object of satisfaction to Leddy Staunton to see him entire ; 
and I hope she will do me the credit to pelieve that I can 
afenge a shentleman’s plood fery speedily and well.’ 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


631 


e 

h 

d 

r- 

1 - 

L 

it 

!> 

if 

1 - 

J 

J 


0 


it 

1 

e 

t 

e 


Such was the observation of a man too much accustomed to 
the ancient state of manners in the Highlands to look upon 
the issue of such a skirmish as anything worthy of wonder or 
emotion. 

We will not attempt to describe the very contrary effect 
which the unexpected disaster produced upon Lady Staunton, 
when the bloody corpse of her husband was brought to the 
house, where she expected to meet him alive and well. All 
was forgotten but that he was the lover of her youth ; and, 
whatever were his faults to the world, that he had towards her 
' exhibited only those that arose from the inequality of spirits 
and temper incident to a situation of unparalleled difficulty. 
In the vivacity of her grief she gave way to all the natural 
irritability of her temper ; shriek followed shriek, and swoon 
succeeded to swoon. It required all Jeanie’s watchful affection 
to prevent her from making known, in these paroxysms of 
affliction, much which it was of the highest importance that 
she should keep secret. 

At length silence and exhaustion succeeded to frenzy, and 
Jeanie stole out to take counsel with her husband, and to 
exhort him to anticipate the Captain’s interference by taking 
possession in Lady Staunton’s name of the private papers of 
her deceased husband. To the utter astonishment of Butler, 
she now for the first time explained the relation betwixt her- 
self and Lady Staunton, which authorised, nay, demanded, 
that he should prevent any stranger from being unnecessarily 
made acquainted with her family affairs. It was in such a 
crisis that Jeanie’s active and undaunted habits of virtuous 
exertion were most conspicuous. While the Captain’s attention 
was still engaged by a prolonged refreshment, and a very tedious 
examination, in Gaelic and English, of all the prisoners, and 
every other witness of the fatal transaction, she had the body 
of her brother-in-law undressed and properly disposed. It then 
appeared, from the crucifix, the beads, and the shirt of hair 
which he wore next his person, that his sense of guilt had in- 
duced him to receive the dogmata of a religion which pretends, 
by the maceration of the body, to expiate the crimes of the soul. 
In the packet of papers which the express had brought to Sir 
George Staunton from Edinburgh, and which Butler, authorised 
by his connexion with the deceased, did not scruple to examine, 
he found new and astonishing intelligence, which gave him 
reason to thank God he had taken that measure. 

Ratcliffe, to whom all sorts of misdeeds and misdoers were 


532 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


familiar, instigated by the promised reward, soon found himself 
in a condition to trace the infant of these unhappy parents, i 
The woman to whom Meg Murdockson had sold that most un- ^ 
fortunate child had made it the companion of her wanderings 
and her beggary until he was about seven or eight years old, j] 
when, as RatclifFe learned from a companion of hers, then in the , ^ 
correction -house of Edinburgh, she sold him in her turn to g, 
Donacha Dhu na Dunaigh. This man, to whom no act of mis- 
chief was unknown, was occasionally an agent in a horrible 
trade then carried on betwixt Scotland and America, for supply- 
ing the plantations with servants, by means of kidnapping, as j 
it was termed, both men and women, but especially children p, 
under age. Here RatclifFe lost sight of the -boy, but had no 
doubt but Donacha Dhu could give an account of him. The ^ 
gentleman of the law, so often mentioned, despatched therefore „ 
an express with a letter to Sir George Staunton, and another 5, 
covering a warrant for apprehension of Donacha, with instruc- 
tions to the Captain of Knockdunder to exert his utmost energy ^ 
for that purpose. 

Possessed of this information, and with a mind agitated by 
the most gloomy apprehensions, Butler now joined the Captain. ^ 
and obtained from him with some difficulty a sight of the j, 
examinations. These, with a few questions to the elder of the 
prisoners, soon confirmed the most dreadful of Butler’s antici- ,, 
pations. We give the heads of the information, wfithout de- 
scending into minute details. I 

Donacha Dhu had indeed purchased Effie’s unhappy child, , 
with the purpose of selling it to the American traders, whom \ ,1 
he had been in the habit of supplying with human flesh. But ^ 
no opportunity occurred for some time ; and the boy, who was J 
known by the name of ‘ The Whistler,’ made some impression 
on the heart and affections even of this rude savage, perhaps ^ 
because he saw in him flashes of a spirit as fierce and vindictive 1 
as his own. When Donacha struck or threatened him — a very ^ 
common occurrence — he did not answer with complaints and 
entreaties like other children, but with oaths and efforts at , 
revenge; he had all the wild merit, too, by which Woggar- ^ 
Wolfe’s arrow-bearing page won the hard heart of his master : j. 

Like a wild cub, rear’d at the ruffian’s feet, t 

He could say biting jests, bold ditties sing, 1 

And quaff his foaming bumper at the board, 

With all the mockery of a little man.* ^ 


Ethwald. 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


533 


In short, as Donacha Dhu said, the Whistler was a horn imp 
of Satan, and therefore he should never leave him. Accordingly, 
from his eleventh year forward, he was one of the band, and 
often engaged in acts of violence. The last of these was more 
immediately occasioned by the researches which the Whistler’s 
real father made after him whom he had been taught to con- 
sider as such. Donacha Dhu’s fears had been for some time 
excited by the strength of the means which began now to be 
employed against persons of his description. He was sensible 
i he existed only by the precarious indulgence of his namesake, 

^ Duncan of Knockdunder, who was used to boast that he could 
put him down or string him up when he had a mind. He 
resolved to leave the kingdom by means of one of those sloops 
Avhich were engaged in the traffic of his old kidnapping friends, 
and which was about to sail for America ; but he was desirous 
first to strike a bold stroke. 

The ruffian’s cupidity was excited by the intelligence that a 
wealthy Englishman was coming to the manse. He had neither 
forgotten the Whistler’s report of the gold he had seen in Lady 
Staunton’s purse, nor his old vow of revenge against the minister; 
and, to bring the whole to a point, he conceived the hope of 
appropriating the money which, according to the general report 
of the country, the minister was to bring from Edinburgh to 
pay for his new purchase. While he was considering how he 
might best accomplish his purpose, he received the intelligence 
from one quarter that the vessel in which he proposed to sail 
was to sail immediately from Greenock ; from another, that 
the minister and a rich English lord, with a great many thousand 
pounds, were expected the next evening at the manse ; and from 
a third, that he must consult his safety by leaving his ordinary 
haunts as soon as possible, for that the Captain had ordered out 
a party to scour the glens for him at break of day. Donacha 
laid his plans with promptitude and decision. He embarked 
with the Whistler and two others of his band (whom, by the 
by, he meant to sell to the kidnappers), and set sail for the 
Caird’s Cove. He intended to lurk till nightfall in the wood 
adjoining to this place, which he thought was too near the 
habitation of men to excite the suspicion of Duncan Knock, 
then break into Butler’s peaceful habitation, and flesh at once 
his appetite for plunder and revenge. When his villainy was 
accomplished, his boat was to convey him to the vessel, which, 
according to previous agreement with the master, was instantly 
to set sail. 


534 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


This despei*ate design would probably have succeeded, but 
for the ruffians being discovered in their lurking-place by Sir 
George Staunton and Butler, in their accidental walk from the 
Caird’s Cove towards the manse. Finding himself detected, and 
at the same time observing that the servant carried a casket, 
or strong-box, Donacha conceived that both his prize and his 
victims were within his power, and attacked the travellers with- 
out hesitation. Shots were fired and swords drawn on both 
sides ; Sir George Staunton offered the bravest resistance, till 
he fell, as there was too much reason to believe, by the hand of 
a son so long sought, and now at length so unhappily met. 

While Butler was half-stunned with this intelligence, the 
hoarse voice of Knockdunder added to his consternation — 
‘I will take the liperty to take down the pell -ropes, Mr. 
Putler, as I must pe taking order to hang these idle people up 
to-morrow morning, to teach them more consideration in their 
doings in future.’ 

Butler entreated him to remember the act abolishing the 
heritable jurisdictions, and that he ought to send them to 
Glasgow or Inverary, to be tried by the circuit. 

Duncan scorned the proposal. 

‘The Jurisdiction Act,’ he said, ‘had nothing to do put with 
the rebels, and specially not with Argyle’s country ; and he would 
hang the men up all three in one row before coot Leddy 
Staunton’s windows, which would be a creat comfort to her in 
the morning to see that the coot gentleman, her husband, had 
been suitably afenged.’ 

And the utmost length that Butler’s most earnest entreaties 
could prevail was, that he would reserve ‘ the twa pig carles 
for the circuit, but as for him they ca’d the Fustier, he should 
try how he could fustle in a swinging tow, for it suldna be said 
that a shentleman, friend to the Duke, was killed in his country, 
and his people didna take at least twa lives for ane.’ 

Butler entreated him to spare the victim for his soul’s sake. 
But Knockdunder answered, ‘ That the soul of such a scum had 
been long the tefil’s property, and that. Cot tarn ! he was deter- 
mined to gif the tefil his due.’ 

All persuasion was in vain, and Duncan issued his mandate 
for execution on the succeeding morning. The child of guilt and 
misery was separated from his companions, strongly pinioned, 
and committed to a separate room, of which the Captain kept 
the key. 

In the silence of the night, however, Mrs. Butler arose, 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


535 


resolved, if possible, to avert, at least to delay, the fate which 
himg over her nephew, especially if, upon conversing with him, 
she should see any hope of his being brought to better temper. 
She had a master-key that opened every lock in the house ; 
and at midnight, when all was still, she stood before the eyes 
of the astonished young savage, as, hard bound with cords, he 
lay, like a sheep designed for slaughter, upon a quantity of the 
refuse of flax which filled a corner in the apartment. Amid 
features sun-burnt, tawny, grimed with dirt, and obscured by 
his shaggy hair of a rusted black colour, Jeanie tried in vain 
to trace the likeness of either of his very handsome parents. 
Yet how could she refuse compassion to a creature so young 
and so wretched — so much more wretched than even he him- 
self could be aware of, since the murder he had too probably 
committed with his own hand, but in which he had at any rate 
participated, was in fact a parricide. She placed food on a 
table near him, raised him, and slacked the cords on his arms, 
so as to permit him to feed himself. He stretched out his 
hands, still smeared with blood, perhaps that of his father, and 
he ate voraciously and in silence. 

‘What is your first name?’ said Jeanie, by way of opening 
the conversation. 

‘ The Whistler.’ 

‘ But your Christian name, by which you were baptized ? ’ 

‘ I never was baptized that I know of. I have no other name 
than the Whistler.’ 

‘ Poor unhappy abandoned lad ! ’ said Jeanie. ‘ What would 
ye do if you could escape from this place, and the death you are 
to die to-morrow morning ? ’ 

‘Join wi’ Rob Roy, or wi’ Sergeant More Cameron (noted 
freebooters at that time), and revenge Donacha’s death on all 
and sundry.’ 

‘ 0, ye unhappy boy,’ said Jeanie, ‘ do ye ken what will come 
o’ ye when ye die ? ’ 

‘ I shall neither feel cauld nor hunger more,’ said the youth, 
doggedly. 

‘ To let him be execute in this dreadful state of mind would 
be to destroy baith body and soiil, and to let him gang I dare 
not ; what will be done ? But he is my sister’s son— my own 
nephew — our flesh and blood ; and his hands and feet are yerked 
as tight as cords can be drawn. Whistler, do the cords hurt 
you ? ’ 

‘ Very much.’ 


536 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


‘ But, if I were to slacken them, you would harm me ? ’ 

‘ No, I would not ; you never harmed me or mine.’ 

‘ There may be good in him yet,’ thought Jeanie ; ‘ I will try 
fair play with him.’ 

She cut his bonds. He stood upright, looked round with a 
laugh of wild exultation, clapped his hands together, and sprung 
from the ground, as if in transport on finding himself at liberty. 
He looked so wild that Jeanie trembled at what she had done. 

‘ Let me out,’ said the young savage. 

‘ I wunna, unless you promise ’ 

‘ Then I’ll make you glad to let us both out.’ 

He seized the lighted candle and threw it among the flax, 
which was instantly in a flame. Jeanie screamed, and ran out 
of the room ; the prisoner rushed past her, threw open a window 
in the passage, jumped into the garden, sprung over its inclosure, 
bounded through the woods like a deer, and gained the sea- 
shore. Meantime, the fire was extinguished ; but the prisoner 
was sought in vain. As Jeanie kept her own secret, the share 
she had in his escape was not discovered ; but they learned his 
fate some time afterwards : it was as wild as his life had hitherto 
been. 

The anxious inquiries of Butler at length learned that the 
youth had gained the ship in which his master, Donacha, had de- 
signed to embark. But the avaricious shipmaster, inured by his 
evil trade to every species of treachery, and disappointed of the 
rich booty which Donacha had proposed to bring aboard, secured 
the person of the fugitive, and having transported him to 
America, sold him as a slave, or indented servant, to a Virginian 
planter far up the country. When these tidings reached Butler, 
he sent over to America a sufficient sum to redeem the lad 
from slavery, with instructions that measures should be taken 
for improving his mind, restraining his evil propensities, and 
encouraging whatever good might appear in his character. But 
this aid came too late. The young man had headed a con- 
spiracy in which his inhuman master was put to death, and had 
then fled to the next tribe of wild Indians. He was never more 
heard of ; and it may therefore be presumed that he lived and 
died after the manner of that savage people, with whom his 
previous habits had well fitted him to associate. 

All hopes of the young man’s reformation being now ended, 
Mr. and Mrs. Butler thought it could serve no purpose to 
explain to Lady Staunton a history so full of horror. She 
remained their guest more than a year, during the greater part 


THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


537 


of which period her grief was excessive. In the latter months, 
it assumed the appearance of listlessness and low spirits, w^hich 
the monotony of her sister’s quiet establishment afforded no 
means of dissipating. Effie, from her earliest youth, was never 
formed for a quiet low content. Far different from her sister, 
she required the dissipation of society to divert her sorrow or 
enhance her joy. She left the seclusion of Knocktarlitie with 
tears of sincere affection, and after heaping its inmates with all 
she could think of that might be valuable in their eyes. But 
she did leave it ; and w'hen the anguish of the parting was over 
her departure was a relief to both sisters. 

The family at the manse of Knocktarlitie, in their own quiet 
happiness, heard of the well-dowered and beautiful Lady Staunton 
resuming her place in the fashionable world. They learned it 
by more substantial proofs, for David received a commission ; 
and as the military spirit of Bible Butler seemed to have revived 
in him, his good behaviour qualified the envy of five hundred 
young Highland cadets, ‘come of good houses,’ who were 
astonished at the rapidity of his promotion. Reuben followed 
the law^, and rose more slowly, yet surely. Euphemia Butler, 
whose fortune, augmented by her aunt’s generosity, and added 
to her own beauty, rendered her no small prize, married a High- 
land laird, who never asked the name of her grandfather, and 
^vas loaded on the occasion with presents from Lady Staunton, 
w^hich made her the envy of all the beauties in Dunbarton and 
Argyle-shires. 

After blazing nearly ten years in the fashionable world, and 
hiding, like many of her compeers, an aching heart with a gay 
demeanour, after declining repeated offers of the most re- 
spectable kind for a second matrimonial engagement. Lady 
Staunton betrayed the inward wound by retiring to the Con- 
tinent and taking up her abode in the convent where she had 
received her education. She never took the veil, but lived and 
died in severe seclusion, and in the practice of the Roman Catholic 
religion, in all its formal observances, vigils, and austerities. 

Jeanie had so much of her father’s spirit as to sorrow bitterly 
for this apostacy, and Butler joined in her regret. ‘ Yet any 
religion, however imperfect,’ he said, ‘was better than cold 
scepticism, or the hurrying din of dissipation, which fills the 
ears of worldlings, until they care for none of these things.’ 

Meanwhile, happy in each other, in the prosperity of their 
family, and the love and honour of all who knew them, this 
simple pair lived beloved and died lamented. 


538 


WAVERLEY NOVELS 


Reader — This tale will not be told in vain, if it shall be 
found to illustrate the great truth that guilt, though it may 
attain temporal splendour, can never confer real happiness ; 
that the evil consequences of our crimes long survive their com- 
mission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, for ever haunt 
the steps of the malefactor; and that the paths of virtue, 
though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of 
pleasantness and peace. 


V Envoy , hy Jedbdiah Cleishbotham 

Thus concludeth the Tale of The Heart of Midlothian^ 
which hath filled more pages than I opined. The Heart of 
Midlothian is now no more, or rather it is transferred to the 
extreme side of the city, even as the Sieur Jean Baptiste 
Poquelin hath it, in his pleasant comedy called Le Medecin 
Malgri lui, where the simulated doctor wittily replieth to a 
charge, that he had placed the heart on the right side instead 
of the left, “ Cela etoit autrefois ainsi, mais nous avons change 
tout celaT Of which witty speech, if any reader shall demand 
the purport, I have only to respond, that I teach the French as 
well as the classical tongues, at the easy rate of five shillings 
per quarter, as my advertisements are periodically making 
known to the public. 


539 


NOTES TO THE HEAET OE MIDLOTHIAN 

Note 1.— Tombstone to Helen Walker, p. xiii 

On Helen Walker’s tombstone in Irongray churchyard, Dumfriesshire, 
there is engraved the following epitaph, written by Sir Walter Scott : — 

. THIS STONE WAS ERECTED 

BY THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY 
TO THE MEMORY 
OF 

HELEN WALKER, 

WHO DIED IN THE YEAR OF GOD 1791. 

THIS HUMBLE INDIVIDUAL PRACTISED IN REAL LIFE 

THE VIRTUES 

WITH WHICH FICTION HAS INVESTED 
THE IMAGINARY CHARACTER OF 

JEANIE DEANS; 

REFUSING THE SLIGHTEST DEPARTURE 
FROM VERACITY, 

EVEN TO SAVE THE LIFE OF A SISTER, 

SHE NEVERTHELESS SHOWED HER 
KINDNESS AND FORTITUDE, 

IN RESCUING HER FROM THE SEVERITY OF THE LAW 
AT THE EXPENSE OP PERSONAL EXERTIONS 
WHICH THE TIME RENDERED AS DIFFICULT 
AS THE MOTIVE WAS LAUDABLE. 

RESPECT THE GRAVE OP POVERTY 
WHEN COMBINED WITH LOVE OF TRUTH 
AND DEAR AFFECTION. 

Erected October 1831. 

{Laing.) 


Note 2.— Sir Walter Scott’s Eelations with the Quakers, p. xviii 

It is an old proverb, that ^many a true word is spoken in jest.’ The 
existence of Walter Scott, third son of Sir William Scott of Harden, is in- 
structed, as it is called, by a charter under the great seal, ‘ Domino Willielmo 
Scott de Harden militi, et Waltero Scott suo filio legitimo tertio genito, 


540 


NOTES 


terrarum de Roberton.’* The munificent old gentleman left all his four 
sons considerable estates, and settled those of Eildrig and Raeb^n, togethei 
with valuable possessions around Lessudden, upon Walter, his fbird son, v, lo 
is ancestor of the Scotts of Raeburn, and of the Author of Waverl^j. He 
appears to have become a convert to the doctrine of the Quakers, or ^ riends, 
and a great assertor of their peculiar tenets. This was probably at the time 
when George Fox, the celebrated apostle of the sect, made an expedition into 
the south of Scotland about 1657, on which occasion he boasts that, as he 
first set his horse’s feet upon Scottish ground, he felt the seed of grace to 
sparkle about him like innumerable sparks of fire,’ Upon the same occasion, 
probably, Sir Gideon Scott of Highchesters, second son of Sir William; imme- 
diate elder brother of Walter, and ancestor of the Author s friend and 
kinsman, the present representative of the farhily of Harden, also embraced 
the tenets of Quakerism. This last convert, Gideon, entered into a con- 
troversy with the Rev. James Kirkton, author of the Secret and T rue History 
of the Church of Scotland, which is noticed by my ingenious friend, Mr. Charles- 
Kirkpatrick Sharpe, in his valuable and curious edition of that work, 4to,. 
1817. Sir William Scott, eldest of the brothers, remained, amid the defection 
of his two younger brethren, an orthodox member of the Presbyterian 
Church, and used such means for reclaiming Walter of Raeburn from his 
heresy as savoured far more of persecution than persuasion. In this he was 
assisted by MacDougal of Makerston, brother to Isabella MacDougal, the 
wife of the said Walter, and who, like her husband, had conformed to the 
Quaker tenets. 

The interest possessed by Sir William Scott and Makerston was powerful 
enough to procure the two following acts of the Privy Council of Scotland, 
directed against Walter of Raeburn as an heretic and convert to Quakerism, 
appointing him to be imprisoned first in Edinburgh jail, and then in that of 
Jedburgh ; and his children to be taken by force from the society and direc- 
tion of their parents, and educated at a distance from them, besides the 
assignment of a sum for their maintenance sufficient in those times to be 
burdensome to a moderate Scottish estate : — 


‘ Apud Edin. vigeshno Junii 1G65. 

‘ The Lords of his Maj. Privy Councill having receaved information that 
Scott of Raeburn, and Isobel Mackdougall, his wife, being infected with the 
error of Quakerism, doe endeavour to breid and traine up William, Walter, 
and Isobel Scotts, their children, in the same profession, doe y^fore give 
order and command to Sir William Scott of Harden, the s^ Raeburn’s brother, 
to seperat and take away the s*^ children from the custody and society of 
the sda parents, and to cause educat and bring them up in his owne house, or 
any other convenient place, and ordaines letters to be direct at the s^ Sir 
William’s instance against Raeburn, for a maintenance to the 8*13 children, 
and that the s^ Sir Wm. give ane account of his diligence with ‘all con- 
veniency.’ 

‘ Edinburgh, 5th July 1666. 

‘ Anent a petition presented be Sir Wm. Scott of Harden, for himself and’ 
in name and behalf of the three children of Walter Scott of Raeburn, his^ 
brother, showing that the Lords of Councill, by ane act of the 22d [20th] day of 
Junii 1665, did grant power and warrand to the petitioner to separat and 
take away Raeburn’s children from his family and education, and to breed 
them in some convenient place, where they might be free from all infection 
in yr younger years from the princepalls of Quakerism, and, for maintenanco 
of the s<i3 children, did ordain letters to be direct against Raeburn ; and, 
seeing the petitioner, in obedience to the order, did take away the s*!®' 


See Douglas’s Baronage, p. 215. 


NOTES 


541 


children, being two sonnes and a daughter, and after some paines taken upon 
them in his owne family, hes sent them to the city of Glasgow, to be bread at 
schooles, and there to be principled with the knowledge of the true religion, 
and that it is necessary the Councill determine what shall be the maintenance 
for qcb Kaeburn’s three children may be charged, as likewayes that Kaeburn 
himself, being now prisoner in the Tolbuith of Edin., where he dayley converses 
with all the Quakers who are prisoners there, and others who dayly resort to 
them, whereby he is hardened in his pernitious opinions and principles, with- 
out all hope of recovery, unlesse he be seperate from such pernitious company, 
humbly therefore, desyring that the Councill might determine upon the soume 
of money to be payed be Eaeburn, for the education of his children, to the 
petitioner, who will be countable y^fore ; and yt, in order to his conversion, 
the place of his imprisonment may be changed. The Lords of his Maj. Privy 
Councill, having at length heard and considered the fors<i petition, doe modifio 
the soume of two thousand pounds Scots, to be payed yearly at the terme of 
Whytsunday be the said Walter Scott of Kaeburn, furth of his estate, to the 
petitioner, for the entertainment and education of the s^ children, beginning 
the first termes payment y^of at Whitsunday last for the half year preceding, 
and so furth yearly, at the s^ terme of Whitsunday -in tyme coming till furder 
orders ; and ordaines the s* Walter Scott of Raeburn to be transported from 
the tolbuith of Ed^ to the prison of Jedburgh, where his friends and oyr» 
may have occasion to convert him. And to the effect he may be secured from 
the practice of oy^ Quakers, the sds Lords doe hereby discharge the magistrates 
of Jedburgh to suffer any percons suspect of these principlls to have access to 
him ; and in case any contraveen, that they secure y^ persons till they be 
yrfore puneist ; and ordaines letters to be direct heirupon in form, as effeirs.’ 

Both the sons thus harshly separated from their father proved good 
scholars. The eldest, William, who carried on the line of Raeburn, was, like 
his father, a deep Orientalist ; the younger, Walter, became a ^od classical 
scholar, a great friend and correspondent of the celebrated Dr. Pitcairn, and 
a Jacobite so distinguished for zeal that he made a vow never to shave his 
beard till the restoration of the exiled family. This last Walter Scott was 
the Author’s great-grandfather. 

There is yet another link betwixt the Author and the simple-minded and 
excellent Society of Friends, through a proselyte of much more importance 
than Walter Scott of Raebmm. The _ celebrated John Swinton_ of Swinton, 
nineteenth baron in descent of that ancient and once powerful family, was, with 
Sir William Lockhart of Lee, the person whom Cromwell chiefly trusted in 
the management of the Scottish affairs during his usurpation. After the 
Restoration, Swinton was devoted as a victim to the new order of things, and 
was brought down in the same vessel which conveyed the Marquis of Argylo 
to Edinburgh, where that nobleman was tried and executed. Swinton was 
destined to the same fate. He had assumed the habit and entered into the 
society of the Quakers, and appeared as one of their number before the Parlia- 
ment of Scotland. He renounced all legal defence, though several pleas were 
open to him, and answered, in conformity to the principles of his sect, that 
at the time these crimes were imputed to him he was in the gall of bitterness 
and bond of iniquity ; but that God Almighty having since called him to the 
light, he saw and acknowledged these errors, and did not refuse to pay the 
forfeit of them, even though, in the judgment of the Parliament, it should 
extend to life itself. . 

Respect to fallen greatness, and to the patience and calm resignation with 
which a man once in high power expressed himself under such a change of 
fortune, found Swinton friends ; family connexions, and some interested con- 
siderations of Middleton, the Commissioner, joined to procure his safety, and 
he was dismissed, but after a long imprisonment, and much dilapidation of 
his estates. It is said that Swinton’s admonitions, while confined in the 
Castle of Edinburgh, had a considerable share in converting to the tenets of 


542 


NOTES 


the Friends Colonel David Barclay, then lying there in garrison. This was 
the father of Robert Barclay, author of the celebrated Apology for the Quakers. 
It may be observed among the inconsistencies of human nature, that Kirkton, 
Wodrow, and other Presbyterian authors, who have detailed the sufferings of 
their own sect for nonconformity with the established church, censure the 
government of the time for not exerting the civil power against the peaceful 
enthusiasts we have treated of, and some express particular chagrin at the 
escape of Swinton. Whatever might be his motives for assuming the tenets of 
the Friends, the old man retained them faithfully till the close of his life. 

Jean Swinton, grand-daughter of Sir John Swinton, son of Judge Swinton, 
as the Quaker was usually termed, was mother of Anne Rutherford, the 
Author’s mother. 

And thus, as in the play of the Anti- Jacobin, the ghost of the Author’s 
grandmother having arisen to speak the Epilogue, it is full time to conclude, 
lest the reader should remonstrate that his desire to know the Author of 
Waverley never included a wish to be acquainted with his whole ancestry. 

Note 3.— Edinburgh City Guard, p. 25 

Tlie Lord Provost was ex-officio commander and colonel of the corps, which 
might bo increased to three hundred men when the times required it. No 
other drum but theirs was allowed to sound on the High Street between the 
Luckenbooths and the Netherbow. 


Note 4.— Last March of the City Guard, p. 26 

This ancient corps is now entirely disbanded. Their last march to do duty 
at Hallow Fair had something in it affecting. Their drums and fifes had 
been wont on better days to play, on this joyous occasion, the lively tune of 

‘ Jockey to the fair ’ ; 

but on this final occasion the afflicted veterans moved slowly to the dirge of 
‘ The last time I came ower the muir.’ 


Note 5.— The Kelpie’s Voice, p. 32 

There is a tradition that, while a little stream was swollen into a torrent by 
recent showers, the discontented voice of the Water Spirit was heard to pro- 
nounce these words. At the same moment a man, urged on by his fate, or, in 
Scottish language, ‘fey,’ arrived at a gallop, and prepared to cross the water. 
No remonstrance from the bystanders was of power to stop him : he plunged 
into the stream, and perished. 


Note 6. — Bess Wynd, p. 38- 

Maitland calls it Best’s Wynd, and later writers Beth’s Wynd. As the 
name implies, it was an open thoroughfare or alley leading from the Lawn- 
market- and extended in a direct line between the old tolbooth to near the 
head of the Cowgate. It was partly destroyed by fire in 1786, and was totally 
removed in 1809, preparatory to the building of the new libraries of the 
Faculty of Advocates and Writers to the Signet [Laing). 


Note 7.— Law relating to Child-Murder, p. 48 

The Scottish Statute Book, anno 1690, chapter 21, in consequence of the 
great increase of the crime of child-murder, both from the temptations to 


NOTES 


543 


commit the offence and the difficulty of discovery, enacted a certain set of 
presumptions, which, in the absence of direct proof, the jury were directed 
to receive as evidence of the crime having actually been committed. The 
circumstances selected for this purpose were, that the woman should have 
concealed her situation during the whole period of pregnancy ; that she should 
not have called for help at her delivery ; and that, combined with these 
grounds of suspicion, the child should be either found dead or be altogether 
missing. Many persons suffered death during the last century under this 
severe act. But during the Author’s memory a more lenient course was 
followed, and the female accused under the act, and conscious of no competent 
defence, usually lodged a petition to the Court of Justiciary, denying, for 
form’s sake, the tenor of the indictment, but stating that, as her good name 
had been destroyed by the charge, she was willing to submit to sentence of 
banishment, to which the crown counsel usually consented. This lenity in 
practice, and the comparative infrequency of the crime since the doom of 
public ecclesiastical penance has been generally dispensed with, have led to 
the abolition of the Statute of William and Mary, which is now replaced by 
another, imposing banishment in those circumstances in which the crime was 
formerly capital. This alteration took place in 1803. 


Note 8.— English Translation of ‘Porta,’ etc. p. 52 

Wide is the fronting gate, and, raised on high. 

With adamantine columns threats the sky ; 

Vain is the force of man, and Heaven’s as vain. 

To crush the pillars which the pile sustain. 

Sublime on these a tower of steel is rear’d. 

Dryden’s Virgil, Book VI. 


Note 9. — Journeymen Mechanics, p. 57 

A near relation of the Author’s used to tell of having been stopped by the 
rioters and escorted home in the manner described. On reaching her own 
home, one of her attendants, in appearance a ‘baxter,’ i.e. a baker’s lad, handed 
her out of her chair, and took leave with a bow, which, in the lady’s opinion, 
argued breeding that could hardly be learned beside the oven. 


Note 10. — The Old Tolbooth, p. 59 

The ancient tolbooth of Edinburgh, situated and described as in chapter 
vi., was built by the citizens in 1561, and destined for the accommoda- 
tion of Parliament, as w^ell as of the High Courts of Justice, and at the same 
time for the confinement of prisoners for debt, or on criminal charges. Since 
the year 1640, when the present Parliament House was erected, the tolbooth 
was occupied as a prison only. Gloomy and dismal as it was, the situation 
in the centre of the High Street rendered it so particularly well-aired, that 
when the plague laid waste the city in 1645, it affected none within these 
melancholy precincts. The tolbooth was removed, with the mass of buildings 
in which it was incorporated, in the autumn of the year 1817. At that time 
the kindness of his old schoolfellow and friend, Kobert Johnstone, Esquire, 
then Dean of Guild of the city, with the liberal acquiescence of the persons 
who had contracted for the w^ork, procured for the Author of Waverley the 
stones which composed the gateway, together with the door, and its ponderous 
fastenings, which he employed in decorating the entrance of his kitchen-court 
at Abbotsford. ‘ To such base offices may we return ! ’ The application of 
these relics of the Heart of Midlothian to serve as the postern gate to a 
court of modern offices may be justly ridiculed as whimsical ; but yet it is 


544 


NOTES 


not without interest that we see the gateway through which so much of the 
stormy politics of a rude age, and the vice and misery of later times, had 
found their passage, now occupied in the service of rural economy. Last 
year, to complete the change, a tom-tit was pleased to build her nest within 
the lock of the tolbooth, a strong temptation to have committed a sonnet, 
had the Author, like Tony Lumpkin, been in a concatenation accordingly. 

It is worth mentioning that an act of beneficence celebrated the demolition 
of the Heart of Midlothian. A subscription, raised and applied by the 
worthy magistrate above-mentioned, procured the manumission of most of 
the unfortunate debtors confined in the old jail, so that there were few or 
none transferred to the new place of confinement.— 

Few persons now living are likely to remember the interior of the Old 
Tolbooth, with narrow staircase, thick walls, and small apartments, nor to 
imagine that it could ever have been used for these purposes. Eobert 
Chambers, in his Mhwr Antiquities of Edinburgh, has preserved ground - 
plans or sections, which clearly show this. The largest hall was on the second 
floor, and measured 27 feet by 20, and 12 feet high. It may have been in- 
tended for the meetings of the Town Council, while the Parliament assembled, 
after 1560, in what was called the Upper Tolbooth, that is, the south-west 1 
portion of the Collegiate Church of St. Giles, until the year 1640, when the 
present Parliament House was completed. Being no longer required for 
such a purpose, it was set apart by the Town Council on the 24th December 
1641 as a distinct church, with the name of the Tolbooth parish, and therefore 
could not have derived the name from its vicinity to the tolbooth, as usually 
stated. The figure of a heart upon the pavement between St. Giles’s Church and 
the Edinburgh County Hall now marks the site of the Old Tolbooth {Laing). 


- Note 11.— The Murder of Captain Porteous, p. 68 

The following interesting and authentic account of the inquiries made by 
Crown Counsel into the affair of the Porteous Mob seems to have been drawn 
up by the Solicitor-General. The office was held in 1737 by Charles Erskine, 
Esq. I owe this curious illustration to the kindness of a professional friend. 
It throws, indeed, little light on the origin of the tumult ; but shows how pro- 
found the darkness must have been, which so much investigation could not 
dispel. 

‘ Upon the 7th of September last, when the unhappy wicked murder of 
Captain Porteus was committed, his Majesties Advocate and Solicitor -were 
out of town, the first beyond Inverness and the other in Annandale, not far 
from Carlyle ; neither of them knew anything of the reprieve, nor did they 
in the least suspect that any disorder was to happen. 

‘ When the disorder happened, the magistrates and other persons concerned 
in the management of the town, seemed to be all struck of a heap ; and 
whether, from the great terror that had seized all the inhabitants, they thought 
ane immediate enquiry would be fruitless, or whether being a direct insult 
upon the prerogative of the crown, they did not care rashly to intermeddle — 
but no proceedings was had by them. Only, soon after, ane express was sent 
to his Majesties Solicitor, who came to town as soon as was possible for him ; 
but, in the meantime, the persons who had been most guilty had either run 
off, or, at least, kept themselves upon the wing until they should see W'hat 
steps were taken by the Government. 

‘ When the Solicitor arrived, he perceived the whole inhabitants under a 
consternation. He had no materials furnished him ; nay, the inhabitants were 
so much afraid of being reputed informers, that very few people had so much 
as the courage to speak with him on the streets. However, having received 
her Majesties orders, by a letter from the Duke of Newcastle, he resolved to 
sett about the matter in earnest, and entered upon ane enquiry, gropeing in 
the dark. He had no assistance from the magistrates worth mentioning, but 


NOTES 


545 


called witness after witness in the privatest manner before himself in his own 
house, and for six w^eeks time, from morning to evening, went on in the enquiry 
without taking the least diversion, or turning his thoughts to any other 
business. 

He tried at first what ho could do by declarations, by engaging secresy, 
so that those who told the truth should never be discovered ; made use of no 
clerk, but wrote all the declarations with his own hand, to encourage them 
to speak out. After all, for some time, he could get nothing but ends of 
stories, which, when pursued, broke off ; and those who appeared and knew 
anything of the matter w’ere under the utmost terror lest it should take air 
that they had mentioned any one man as guilty. 

‘ During the coui'se of the enquiry, the run of the town, which was strong 
for the villanous actors, begun to alter a little, and when they saw the King’s 
servants in earnest to do their best, the generality, who before had spoke very 
warmly in defence of the wickedness, begun to be silent, and at that period 
more of the criminals begun to abscond. 

‘ At length the enquiry began to open a little, and the Sollicitor was under 
some difficulty how to proceed. He very well saw that the first warrand that 
was issued out would start the whole gang ; and as he had not come at any one 
of the most notorious offenders, he was unwilling, upon the slight evidence he 
had, to begin. However, upon notice given him by Generali Moyle that one 
King, a butcher in the Canongate, had boasted in presence of Bridget Knell, 
a soldier’s wife, the morning after Captain Porteus was hanged, that he had 
a very active hand in the mob, a warrand was issued out, and King was appre- 
hended and imprisoned in the Canongate tolbooth. 

‘ This obliged the Sollicitor immediately to proceed to take up those against 
whom he had any information. By a signed declaration, William Stirling, 
apprentice to J ames Stirling, merchant in Edinburgh, was charged as haveing 
been at the Nether-Bow, after the gates were shutt, with a Lochaber ax, or 
halbert, in his hand, and haveing begun a huzza, marched upon the head of 
the mob towards the Guard. 

‘ James Braid wood, son to a candlemaker in town, was, by a signed declara- 
tion, charged as haveing been at the Tolbooth door, giveing directions to the 
mob about setting fire to the door . and that the mob named him by his name, 
and asked his advice. 

‘ By another declaration, one Stoddart, a journeyman smith, was charged 
of haveing boasted publickly, in a smith’s shop at Leith, that he had assisted 
in breaking open the Tolbooth door. 

‘Peter Traill, a journeyman wright, by one of the declarations, was also 
accused of haveing lockt the Nether- Bow Port when it was shutt by the mob. 

‘ His Majesties Sollicitor having these informations, imployed privately 
such persons as he could best rely on, and the truth was, there were very few 
in whom he could repose confidence. But he was, indeed, faithfully served 
by one Webster, a soldier in the Welsh fuzileers, recommended to him by 
Lieutenant Alshton, who, with very great address, informed himself, and 
really run some risque in getting his information, concerning the places where 
the persons informed against used to haunt, and how they might be seized. 
In consequence of which, a party of the Guard from the Canongate was a^eed 
on to march up at a certain hour, when a message should be sent. The Solicitor 
wrote a letter and gave it to one of the town officers, ordered to attend 
Captain Maitland, one of the town Captains, promoted to thatcoinmand since 
the unhappy accident, who, indeed, w'as extremely diligent and active through- 
out the whole ; and haveing got Stirling and &aidwood apprehended, dis- 
patched the officer with the letter to the military in the Canongate, who im- 
mediately begun their march, and by the time the Sollicitor had half examined 
the said two persons in the Burrow-room, where the magistrates were present, 
a party of fifty men, drums beating, marched into the Parliament doss, and 
drew up, which was the first thing that struck a terror, and from that time 
forward the insolence w'as succeeded by fear. 


54G 


NOTES 


‘ Stirling and Braidwood were immediately sent to the Castle and imprisoned. 
That same night, Stoddart, the smith, was seized, and he was committed to the 
Castle also, as was likewise Traill, the journeyman wright, who were all sever- 
ally examined, and denyed the least accession. 

‘ In the meantime, the enquiry was going on, and it haveing cast up in one 
of the declarations, that a hump’d-backed creature marched with a gun as one 
of the guards to Porteus when he went up the Lawn Markett, the person 
v.'ho emitted this declaration was employed to walk the streets to see if he 
could find him out ; at last he came to the Sollicitor and told him he had ' 
found him, and that he was in a certain house. Whereupon a warrand. was . 
issued out against him, and he was apprehended and sent to the Castle, and 
he ])roved to be one Birnie, a helper to the Countess of Weemys’s coachman. 

‘Thereafter, ane information was given in against William M‘Lauchlan, j 
ffootman to the said Countess, as haveing been very active in the mob ; ffor | 
some time he kept himself out of the way, but at last he was apprehended and j 
likewise committed to the Castle. , 

‘And these were all the prisoners who were putt under confinement in that 
place. 

‘ There were other persons imprisoned in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and 
severalls against whom warrands were issued, but could not be apprehended, 
whose names and cases shall afterwards be more particularly taken notice of. 

‘ The ffriends of Stirling made ane application to the Earl of Islay, Lord 
Justice-Generall, setting furth, that he was seized with a bloody fflux ; that his 
life was in danger ; and that upon ane examination of witnesses whose names 
were given in, it would appear to conviction that he had not the least access 
to any of the riotous proceedings of that wicked mob. 

‘ This petition was by his Lordship putt in the hands of his Majesties 
Sollicitor, who examined the witnesses ; and by their testimonies it appeared 
that the young man, who was not above eighteen years of age, was that night 
in company with about half a dozen companions, in a public house in Stephen 
Law’s doss, near the back of the Guard, where they all remained untill the 
noise came to the house that the mob had shut the gates and seized the 
Guard, upon which the company broke up, and he and one of his companions 
went towards his master’s house ; and, in the course of the after examination, 
there was a witness who declared, nay, indeed swore — for the Sollicitor, by 
this time, saw it necessary to put those he examined upon oath — that he met 
him [Stirling] after he entered into the alley where his master lives, going 
towards his house ; and another witness, fellow-prentice with Stirling, declares, 
that after the mob had seized the Guard, he went home, where he found 
Stirling before him ; and that his master lockt the door, and kept them both 
at home till after twelve at night : upon weighing of which testimonies, and 
upon consideration had, that he was charged by the declaration only of one 
person, who really did not appear to be a witness of the greatest weight, and 
that his life was in danger from the imprisonment, he was admitted to baill by i 
the Lord Justice-Generall, by whoso warrand he was committed. 

‘ Braidwood’s friends applyed in the same manner ; but as he stood charged 
by more than one witness, he was not released— tho’, indeed, the witnesses 
adduced for him say somewhat in his exculpation— that he does not seem to 
have been upon any original concert ; and one of the witnesses says he was 
along with him at the Tolbooth door, and refuses what is said against him, ' 
with regard to his having advised the burning of the Tolbooth door. But he I 
remains still in prison. 

‘ As to Traill, the journeyman wright, he is charged by the same witness 
who declared against Stirling, and there is none concurrs with him ; and to 
say the truth concerning him, he seemed to be the most ingenuous of any of 
them whom the Solicitor examined, and pointed out a witness by whom one 
of the first accomplices was discovered, and who escaped when the warrand 
was to be putt in execution ag'ainst them. He 2)ositively denys his having 
shutt the gate, and ’tis thought Traill ought to be admitted to baiU. 


NOTES 


547 


‘ As to Birnic, ho is charged only by one witness, who had never seen him 
before, nor knew his name ; so, tho’ I dare say the witness honestly mentioned 
him, ’tis possible he may be mistaken ; and in the examination of above 200 
witnesses, there is no body concurrs with him, and ho is ane insignificant little 
creature. 

‘With regard to M‘Lauchlan, the proof is strong against him by one wit- 
ness, that he acted as a serjeant or sort of commander, for some time, of a 
Guard that stood cross between the upper end of the Luckenbooths and the 
north side of the street, to stop all but friends from going towards the Tol- 
booth ; and by other witnesses, that he was at the Tolbooth door with a link 
in his hand, while the operation of beating and burning it was going on ; that 
he went along with the mob, with a halbert in his hand, untill he came to the 
gallows-stone in the Grassmarket, and that he stuck the halbert into the 
hole of the gallows-stone ; that afterwards he went in amongst the mob when 
Captain Porteus was carried to the dyer’s tree ; so that the proof seems very 
heavy against him. 

‘To sum up this matter with regard to the prisoners in the Castle, ’tis 
believed there is strong proof against M‘Lauchlan ; there is also proof against 
Braidwood. But as it consists only in emission of words said to have been had 
by him while at the Tolbooth door, and that he is ane insignificant pitifull 
creature, and will find people to swear heartily in his favours, ’tis at best 
doubtfull whether a jury will be got to condemn him. 

‘As to those in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, John Crawford, who had for 
some time been employed to ring the bells in the steeple of the new Church of 
Edinburgh, being in company with a soldier accidentally, the discourse falling 
in concerning Captain Porteus and his murder, as he appears to be a light- 
headed fellow, he said that he knew people that were more guilty than any 
that were putt in prison. Upon this information, Crawford was seized, and 
being examined, it appeared that, when the mob begun, as he was comeing 
down from the steeple, the mob took the keys from him ; that he was that 
night in several corners, and did indeed delate severall persons whom he saw 
there, and immediately warrands were dispatched, and it was found they had 
absconded and fled. But there was no evidence against him of any kind. Nay, 
on the contrary, it appeared that he had been with the Magistrates in Clerk’s, 
the vintner’s, relating to them what he had seen in the streets. Therefore, 
after haveing detained him in prison ffor a very considerable time, his Majestie’s 
Advocate and Sollicitor signed a warrand for his liberation. 

‘There was also one James Wilson incarcerated in the said Tolbooth, upon 
the declaration of one witness, who said he saw him on the streets with a gun ; 
and there he remained for some time, in order to try if a concurring witness 
could be found, or that he acted any part in the tragedy and wickedness. But 
nothing further appeared against him ; and being seized with a severe sick- 
ness, he is, by a warrand signed by his Majestie’s Advocate and Sollicitor, 
liberated upon giveing sufficient baill. 

‘As to King, enquiry was made, and the ffact comes out beyond all excep- 
tion, that he was in the lodge at the Nether-Bow, with Lindsay the waiter, 
and several other people, not at all concerned in the mob. But after the affair 
was over, he went up towards the guard, and having met with Sandie the 
Turk and his wife, who escaped out of prison, they returned to his house at 
the Abbey, and then ’tis very possible he may have thought fitt in his beer 
to boast of villany, in which he could not possibly have any share ; for that 
reason he was desired to find baill and he should be set at liberty. But he is 
a stranger and a fellow of very indifferent character, and ’tis believed it won’t 
be easy for him to find baill. Wherefore, it’s thought he must be sett at 
liberty without it. Because he is a burden upon the Government while kept 
in confinement, not being able to maintain himself. 

‘ What is above is all that relates to persons in custody. But there are 
warrands out against a great many other persons who are fled, particularly 
against one William White, a journeyman baxter, who, by the evidence, 


548 


NOTES 


appears to have been at the beginning of the mob, and to have gone along 
with the drum, from the West-Port to the Nether-Bow, and is said to have 
been one of those who attacked the guard, and probably was as deep as any 
one there. 

‘ Information was given that he was lurking at Falkirk, where he was born. 
Whereupon directions were sent to the Sheriff of the County, and a warrand 
from his Excellency Generali Wade to the commanding officers at Stirling 
and Linlithgow, to assist, and all possible endeavours were used to catch hold 
of him, and ’tis said he escaped very narrowly, having lyen concealed in some 
outhouse ; and the misfortune was, that those who were employed in the 
search did not know him personally. Nor, indeed, was it easy to trust any of 
the acquaintances of so low, obscure a fellow with the secret of the warrand to 
be putt in execution. 

‘ There was also strong evidence found against Eobert Taylor, servant to 
William and Charles Thomsons, periwig- makers, that he acted as ane officer 
among the mob, and he is traced from the g-uard to the well at the head of 
Forrester’s Wynd, where he stood and had the appellation of Captain from 
the mob, and from that walking down the Bow before Captain Porteus, with 
his Lochaber axe ; and by the description given of one who hawl’d the rope by 
which Captain Porteus was pulled up, ’tis believed Taylor was the person ; and 
’tis further probable that the witness who delated Stirling had mistaken Taylor 
for him, their stature and age (so far as can be gathered from the description) 
being much the same. 

‘ A great deal of pains were taken, and no charge was saved, in order to 
have catched hold of this Taylor, and warrands were sent to the country 
where he was born ; but it appears he had shipt himself off for Holland, 
where it is said he now is. 

‘There is strong evidence also against Thomas Burns, butcher, that he 
was ane active person from the beginning of the mob to the end of it. He 
lurkt for some time amongst those of his trade ; and artfully enough a train 
was laid to catch him, under pretence of a message that had come from his 
father in Ireland, so that he came to a blind alehouse in the Flesh-market 
doss, and a party being ready, was by Webster the soldier, who was upon this 
exploit, advertised to come down. However, Burns escaped out at a back 
window, and hid himself in some of the houses which are heaped together 
upon one another in that place, so that it was not possible to catch him. 
’Tis now said he is gone to Ireland to his father, who lives there. 

‘ There is evidence also against one Robert Anderson, journeyman and ser- 
vant to Colin Alison, wright, and against Thomas Linnen [Linning] and James 
Maxwell, both servants also to the said Colin Alison, who all seem to have been 
deeply concerned in the matter. Anderson is one of those who putt the rope 
upon Captain Porteus’s neck. Linnen seems also to have been very active ; and 
Maxwell— whieh is pretty remarkable — is proven to have come to a shop upon 
the Friday before, and charged the journeymen and prentices there to attend 
in the Parliament doss on Tuesday night, to assist to hang Captain Porteus. 
These three did early abscond, and though warrands had been issued out 
against them, and all endeavours used to apprehend them, could not be found. 

‘ One Waldie, a servant to George Campbell, wright, has also absconded, 
and many others, and ’tis informed that numbers of them have shipt them- 
selves off ffor the Plantations ; and upon ane information that a ship was going- 
off ffrom Glasgow, in which severall of the rogues were to transport themselves 
beyond seas, proper warrands were obtained, and persons dispatched to search 
the said ship, and seize any that can be found. 

‘ The like warrands had been issued with regard to ships from Leith. But 
whether they had been scard, or whether the information had been groundless 
they had no effect. ’ 

‘This is a summary of the enquiry, ffrom which it appears there is no 
prooff on which one can rely, but against M‘Lauchlan. There is a prooff also 
against Braidwood, but more exceptionable. 


NOTES 


549 


His Majesties Advocate, since he came to town, lias join’d with the Sollicitor, 
and has done his utmost to gett at the liottom of this matter, but hitherto it 
stands as is above represented. They are resolved to have their eyes and 
their ears open, and to do what they can. But they labour’d exceedingly 
against the stream ; and it may truly be said that nothing was wanting on 
their part. Nor have they declined any labour to answer the commands laid 
upon them to search the matter to the bottom.’ 


Thk Porteous Mob 

In chapters ii. -vii., the circumstances of that extraordinary riot and 
conspiracy, called the Porteous Mob, are given with as much accuracy as 
the Author was able to collect them. The order, regularity, and determined 
resolution with which such a violent action was devised and executed were 
only equalled by the secrecy which was observed concerning the principal 
actors. 

Although the fact was performed by torch-light, and in presence of a 
great multitude, to some of whom, at least, the individual actors must have 
been known, yet no discovery was ever made concerning any of the per- 
petrators of the slaughter. 

Two men only were brought to trial for an offence which the government 
were so anxious to detect and punish. William M‘Lauchlan, footman to the 
Countess of Wemyss, who is mentioned in the report of the Solicitor-General 
(page_546), against whom strong evidence had been obtained, was brought to 
trial in March 1737, charged as having been accessory to the riot, armed 
with a Lochaber axe. But this man, who was at all times a silly creature, 
proved that he was in a state of mortal intoxication during the time he was 
present with the rabble, incapable of giving them either advice or assistance, 
or, indeed, of knowing what he or they were doing. He was also able to 
prove that he was forced into the riot, and upheld while there by two bakers, 
who put a Lochaber axe into his hand. The jury, wisely judging this poor 
creature could be no proper subject of punishment, found the panel ‘Not guilty. ’ 
The same verdict was given in the case of Thomas Linning, also mentioned 
in the Solicitor’s memorial, who was tried in 1738. In short, neither then, 
nor for a long period afterwards, was anything discovered relating to the 
organisation of the Porteous Plot. 

The imagination of the people of Edinburgh was long irritated, and their 
curiosity kept awake, by the mystery attending this extraordinary con- 
spiracy, It was generally reported of such natives of Edinburgh as, having 
left the city in youth, returned with a fortune amassed in foreign countries, 
that they had originally fled on account of their share in the Porteous Mob. 
But little credit can be attached to these surmises, as in most of the cases 
they are contradicted by dates, and in none supported by anything but vague 
rumours, grounded on the ordinary wish of the vulgar to impute the success 
of prosperous men to some unpleasant source. The secret history of the 
Porteous Mob has been till this day unravelled ; and it has always been quoted 
as a close, daring, and calculated act of violence of a nature peculiarly 
characteristic of the Scottish people. 

Nevertheless, the Author, for a considerable time, nourished hopes to have 
found himself enabled to throw some light on this mysterious story. An old 
man, who died about twenty years ago, at the advanced age of ninety -three, 
was said to have made a communication to the clergyman who attended 
upon his death -bed, respecting the origin of the Porteous Mob. This person 
followed the trade of a carpenter, and had been employed as such on the 
estate of a family of opulence and condition. His character, in his line of 
life and amongst his neighbours, was excellent, and never underwent the 
slightest suspicion. His confession was said to have been to the following 
purpose ; — That he was one of twelve young men belonging to the village of 


550 


NOTES 


Pathhead, whose animosity against Porteous, on account of the execution of 
Wilson, was so extreme that they resolved to execute vengeance on him 
with their own hands, rather than he should escape punishment. With this 
resolution they crossed the Forth at different ferries, and rendezvoused at 
the suburb called Portsburgh, where their appearance in a body soon called 
numbers around them. The public mind was in such a state of irritation 
that it only wanted a single spark to create an explosion ; and this was 
afforded by the exertions of the small and determined band of associates. 
The appearance of premeditation and order which distinguished the riot, 
according to his account, had its origin, not in any previous plan or con- 
spiracy, but in the character of those who were engaged in it. The story 
also serves to show why nothing of the origin of the riot has ever been dis- 
covered, since, though in itself a great conflagration, its source, according to 
this account, was from an obscure and apparently inadequate cause. 

I have been disappointed, however, in obtaining the evidence on which 
this story rests. The present proprietor of the estate on which the old man 
died (a particular friend of the Author) undertook to question the son of the 
deceased on the subject. This person follows his father’s trade, and holds 
the employment of carpenter to the same family. He admits that his father’s 
going abroad at the time of the Porteous Mob was popularly attributed to 
his having been concerned in that affair ; but adds that, so far as is known to 
him, the old man had never made any confession to that effect ; and, on the 
contrary, had uniformly denied being present. My kind friend, therefore, 
had recourse to a person from whom he had formerly heard the story ; but 
who, either from respect to an old friend’s memory, or from failure of his 
own, happened to have forgotten that ever such a communication was made. 
So my obliging correspondent (who is a fox-hunter) wrote to me that he was 
completely planted ; and all that can be said with respect to the tradition is, 
that it certainly once existed, and was generally believed. — 

The Kev. Dr. Carlyle, minister of Inveresk, in his Autobiography, gives some 
interesting particulars relating to the Porteous Mob, from personal recollections. 
He happened to be present in the Tolbooth Church when Robertson made his 
escape, and also at the execution of Wilson in the Grassmarket, when Captain 
Porteous fired upon the mob, and several persons w'ere killed. Edinburgh, 
1860, 8vo, pp. 33-42 {Laing). 


Note 12.— Dumbiedikes, p. 73 

Dumbiedikes, selected as descriptive of the taciturn character of the 
imaginary owner, is really the name of a house bordering on the King’s Park, 
so called because the late Mr. Braidwood, an instructor of the deaf and dumb, 
resided there with his pupils. The situation of the real house is different 
from that assigned to the ideal mansion. 


Note 13.— College Students, p. 75 

Immediately previous to the Revolution, the students at the Edinburgh 
College were violent anti-Catholics. They were strongly suspected of burning 
the house of Priestfield, belonging to the Lord Provost ; and certainly were 
guilty of creating considerable riots in 1688-89. 


Note 14. — Recommendation to Arboriculture, p. 75 

The Author has been flattered by the assurance that this naive mode of 
recommending arboriculture — which was actually delivered in these very 
words by a Highland laird, while on his death-bed, to his son— had so much 
weight with a Scottish earl as to lead to his planting a large tract of country. 


NOTES 


551 


Note 15. — Carsphakn John, p. 90 

John Semple, called Car.spharn .lohn, bccau.se minister of the parish in 
Galloway so called, was a Presbyterian clergyman of singular piety and great 
zeal, of whom Patrick Walker records the following passage : ‘ That night 
after his wife died, he spent the whole ensuing night in prayer and meditation 
in his garden. The next morning, one of his elders coming to see him, and 
lamenting his great loss and want of rest, he replied, “I declare I liave not, 
all night, had one thought of the death of my wife, I have been so taken iqi 
in meditating on Heavenly things. I have been this night on the banks of 
Ulai, plucking an apple here and there.” ’—Walker’s i?mar/l-a6Ze Passages of 
the Life and Death of Mr. John Semple. 


Note 16.— Patrick Walker, p. 99 

This personage, whom it would be base ingratitude in the Author to pass 
over without some notice, v.'as by far the most zealous and faithful collector 
and recorder of the actions and opinions of the Cameronians. He resided, 
while stationary, at the Bristo Port of Edinburgh, but was by trade an 
itinerant merchant or pedlar, which profession he seems to have exercised 
in Ireland as well as Britain. He composed biographical notices of Alexander 
Peden, John Semple, John Welwood, and Richard Cameron, all ministers of 
the Cameronian persuasion, to which the last-mentioned member gave the 
name. 

It is from such tracts as these, written in the sense, feeling, and spirit of 
the sect, and not from the sophisticated narratives of a later period, that the 
real character of the persecuted class is to be gathered. Walker writes with 
a simplicity which sometimes slides into the burlesque, and sometimes attains 
a tone of simple piathos, but always expressing the most daring confidence in 
his own correctness of creed and sentiments, .sometimes with narrow-minded 
and disgusting bigotry. His turn for the marvellous was that of his time 
and sect ; but there is little room to doubt his veracity concerning whatever 
he quotes on his own knowledge. His small tracts now bring a very high 
price, especially the earlier and authentic editions. 

The tirade against dancing pronounced by David Deans is, as intimated in 
the text, partly borrowed from Peter [Patrick] Walker. He notices, as a foul 
reproach upon the name of Richard Cameron, that his memory was vituper- 
ated ‘by pipers and fiddlers playing the Cameronian march — carnal vain 
springs, which too many professors of religion dance to ; a practice unbecom- 
ing the professors of Christianity to dance to any spring, but somewhat more 
to this. Whatever,’ he proceeds, ‘be the many foul blots recorded of the 
.saints in Scripture, none of them is chai’ged with this regular fit of distraction. 
We find it has been practised by the wicked and profane, as the dancing at 
that brutish, base action of the calf-making ; and it had been good for that 
unhappy lass who danced off the head of John the Baptist, that she had 
been born a cripple and never drawn a limb to her. Historians say that 
her sin was written upon her judgment, who some time thereafter was dancing 
upon the ice and it broke and snapt the head off her: her head danced 
above and her feet beneath. There is ground to think and conclude that, 
when the world’s wickedness was great, dancing at their marriages was 
practised ; but when the heavens above and the earth beneath were let 
loose upon them with that overflowing flood, their mirth was soon staid ; and 
when the Lord in holy justice rained fire and brimstone from heaven upon 
that wicked people and city Sodom, enjoying fulness of bread and idleness, 
their fiddle-strings and hands went all in a flame ; and the whole people 
in thirty miles of length and ten of breadth, as historians say, were all made 
to fry in their skins ; and at the end, whoever are giving in marriages and 
dancing when all will go in a flame, they will quickly change their note. 


552 


NOTES 


‘ I have often wondered thorow my life, how any, that ever knew what it 
was to bow a knee in earnest to pray, durst crook a hough to fyke and fling 
at a piper’s and fiddler’s springs. 1 bless the Lord that ordered my lot so in 
my dancing days, that made the fear of the bloody rope and bullets to my 
neck and head, the pain of boots, thumbikins, and irons, cold and hunger, 
wetness and weariness, to stop the lightness of my head and the wantonness 
of my feet. What the never-to-be-forgotten Man of God, J ohn Knox, said 
to Queen Mary, when she gave him that sharp challenge, which would strike 
our mean-spirited, tongue-tacked ministers dumb, for his giving public faith- 
ful warning of the danger of church and nation, through her marrying 
the Dauphine of France, when he left her bubbling and greeting, and came 
to an outer court, where her Lady Maries were fyking and dancing, he said, 
“ 0 brave ladies, a brave world, if it would last, and Heaven at the hinder end ! 
But fye upon the knave Death, that will seize upon these bodies of yours ; 
and where will all your fiddling and flinging be then?” Dancing being such 
a common evil, especially amongst young professors, that all the lovers of 
the Lord should hate, has caused me to insist the more upon it, especially 
that foolish spring the Cameronian march ! ’ — Life and Death of three Famous 
Worthies, etc., by Peter [Patrick] Walker, 12mo, p. 59. 

It may be here observed, that some of the milder class of Cameronians 
made a distinction between the two sexes dancing separately, and allowed of 
it as a healthy and not unlawful exercise ; but when men and women mingled 
in sport, it was then called promiscuous dancing, and considered as a scandalous 
enormity. 


Note 17.— Muschat’s Cairn, p. 113 

Nicol Muschat, a debauched and profligate wretch, having conceived a 
hatred against his wife, entered into a conspiracy with another brutal libertine 
and gambler, named Campbell of Burnbank (repeatedly mentioned in Penne- 
cuick’s satirical poems of the times), by which Campbell undertook to destroy 
the woman’s character, so as to enable Muschat, on false pretences, to obtain 
a divorce'drom her. The brutal devices to which these worthy accomplices 
resorted for that purpose having failed, they endeavoured to destroy her by 
administering medicine of a dangerous kind, and in extraordinary quantities. 
This purpose also failing, Nicol Muschat, or Muschet, did finally, on the 
17th October 1720, carry his wife under cloud of night to the King’s Park, 
adjacent to what is called the Duke’s Walk, near Holyrood Palace, and 
there took her life by cutting her throat almost quite through, and inflicting 
other wounds. He pleaded guilty to the indictment, for which he suffered 
death. His associate, Campbell, was sentenced to transportation for his share 
in the previous conspiracy. See MacLaurin’s CHminal Cases, pp. 64 and 738. 

In memory, and at the same time execration, of the deed, a cairn, or pile 
of stones, long marked the spot. It is now almost totally removed, in conse- 
quence of an alteration on the road in that place. 


Note 18.— Hangman or Lockman, p. 139 

Lockman, so called from the small quantity of meal (Scottice, lock) which 
he was entitled to take out of every boll exposed to market in the city. In 
Edinburgh the duty has been very long commuted ; but in Dumfries the finisher 
of the law still exercises, or did lately exercise, his privilege, the quantity 
taken being regulated by a small iron ladle, which he uses as the measure of 
his perquisite. The expression lock, for a small quantity of any readily 
divisible dry substance, as corn, meal, flax, or the like, is still preserved, not 
only popularly, but in a legal description, as the lock and gowpen, or small 
quantity and handful, payable in thirlage cases, as in town multure. 


NOTES 


553 


Notk 19.— Tiik Faiiiy JIoy of Leith, p. 151 

Tin’s legend was in former editions inaccurately said to exist in Baxter’s 
World of Spirits ; but is, in fact, to be found in Piindcemoiiinm, or the 
Deed's Cloyster ; heiny a further blow to JSlodeni Sadduceisni, by Richard 
Bovet, Gentleman, 12mo, 1684 [p. 172, etc.] The work is inscribed to Dr. 
Henry More. The story is entitled, ‘ A remarkable passage of one named the 
Fairy Boy of Leith, in Scotland, given me by my worthy friend Captain George 
Burton, and attested under his own hand ’ ; and is as follows : — 

‘ About fifteen years since, having business that detained me for some time 
in Leith, which is near Edenborough, in the kingdom of Scotland, I often met 
some of my acquaintance at a certain house there, where we used to drink a 
glass of wine for our refection. The woman which kept the house was of 
honest reputation amongst the neighbours, which made me give the more atten- 
tion to what she told me one day about a Fairy Boy (as they called him) who 
lived about that town. She had given me so strange an account of him, that 
I desired her I might see him the first opportunity, which she promised ; and 
not long after, passing that way, she told me there was the Fairy Boy but a 
little before I came by ; and casting her eye into the street, said, “ Look you, 
sir, yonder he is at play with those other boys,” and designing him to me, I 
went, and by smooth words, and a piece of money, got him to come into the 
house with me ; where, in the presence of divers people, I demanded of him 
several astrological questions, which he answered with great subtility, and 
through all his discourse carryed it with a cunning much above his years, 
which seemed not to exceed ten or eleven. He seemed to make a motion like 
drumming upon the table with his fingers, upon which I asked him, whether 
he could beat a drum, to which he I’eplied, “ Yes, sir, as well as any man in 
Scotland ; for every Thursday night I beat all points to a sort of people 
that use to meet under yonder hill " (pointing to the great hill between 
Edenborough and Leith). “How, boy,” quoth I ; “what company have you 
there ? ” “ There are, sir,” said he, “a great company both of men and women, 
and they are entertained with many sorts of musick besides my drum ; they 
have, besides, plenty of variety of meats and wine ; and many times we are 
carried into France or Holland in a night, and return again ; and whilst we 
are there, we enjoy all the pleasures the country doth afford.” I demanded 
of him, how they got under that hill. To which he replied, “That there were 
a great pair of gates that opened to them, though they were invisible to 
others, and that within there were brave large rooms, as well accommodated as 
most in Scotland.” I then asked him, how I should know what he said to be 
true ? Upon which he told me, he would read my fortune, saying I should 
have two wives, and that he saw the forms of them sitting on my shoulders ; 
that both would be very handsom women. As he was thus speaking, a 
woman of the neighbourhood, coming into the room, demanded of him what 
her fortune should be ? He told her that she had had two bastards before 
she was married ; which put her in such a rage that she desired not to hear 
the rest. The woman of the house told me that all the people in Scotland 
could not keep him from the rendesvous on Thursday night ; upon which, by 
promising him some more money, I got a promise of him to meet me at the 
same place, in the afternoon the Thursday following, and so dismist him 'at 
that time. The boy came again at the place and time appointed, and I had 
prevailed with some friends to continue with me, if possible, to prevent his 
moving that night ; he was placed between us, and answered many questions, 
without offering to go from us, until about eleven of the clock he was got 
away unperceived of the company ; but I suddenly missing him, hasted to 
the door, and took hold of him, and so returned him into the same room ; wo 
all watched him, and on a sudden he was again got out of the doors. I 
followed him close, and he made a noise in the street as if he had been, 
set upon ; but from that time I could never see him. 


‘ George Burton. ’ 


554 


NOTES 


Note 20. — Intercourse of the Covenanters with the Invisible 

^ World, p. 152 i 

The gloomy, dangerous, and constant wanderings of the persecuted sect of 
Cameronians naturally led to their entertaining with peculiar credulity the 
belief that they were sometimes persecuted, not only by the wrath of men, 
but by the secret wiles and open terrors of Satan. In fact, a flood could not 
happen, a horse cast a shoe, or any other the most ordinary interruption 
thwart a minister’s wish to perform service at a particular spot, than the j 
accident was imputed to the immediate agency of fiends. The encounter of i 
Alexander Peden with the devil in the cave, and that of John Semple with j 
the demon in the ford, are given by Peter [Patrick] Walker, almost in the i 
language of the text. j 


Note 21.— Jock Dalgleish, p. 164 

Among the flying leaves of the period, there is one called ‘Sutherland’s 
Lament for the loss of his post, — with his advice to John Daglees, his successor.’ 
He was whipped and banished, 25th July 1722. 

Thei*e is another, called ‘The Speech and Dying Words of John Dalgleish, 
Lockman, alias Hangman, of Edinburgh, ’ containing these lines : — 

Death, I’ve a favour for to beg, 

That ye wad only gie a fleg. 

And spare rny life ; 

As I did to ill-hanged Megg, 

The Webster’s wife. 

[Laing . ) 


Note 22.— Calumniator of the Fair Sex, p. 186 

The journal of Graves, a Bow Sti'eet officer, despatched to Holland to obtain 
the surrender of the unfortunate William Brodie, bears a reflection on the 
ladies somewhat like that put in the mouth of the police-officer Sharpitlaw. It 
had been found difficult to identify the unhappy criminal ; and when a Scotch 
gentleman of respectabilitj' had seemed disposed to give evidence on the 
point required, his son-in-law, a clergyman in Amsterdam, and his daughter, 
were suspected by Graves to have used arguments with the witness to dissuade 
him from giving his testimony ; on which subject the journal of the Bow 
Street officer proceeds th\is : 

‘ Saw then a manifest reluctance in Mr. , and had no doubt the daughter 

and parson would endeavour to persuade him to declino troubling himself in 
the matter, but judged he could not go back from what he liad said to Mr. 
Kich. — Nota Bene. No mischief hut a woman or ajnnest in it — here both.’ 


Note 23.— The Magistrates and the Porteous Mob, p. 194 

The Magistrates were closely interrogated before the House of Peers, con- 
cerning the particulars of the Mob, and the patois in which these functionaries 
made their answers sounded strange in the ears of the Southern nobles. The 
Duke of Newcastle having demanded to know with what kind of shot the guard 
which Porteous commanded had loaded their muskets, w'as answered naively, 
*Ow, just sic as ane shoots dukes and fools with.’ This reply was considered 
.as a contempt of the House of Lords, and the Provost would have .suffered 
accordingly, but that the Duke of Argylo explained that the expression, 
properly rendered into English, means ducks and waterfoid. 


NOTES 


555 


Note 24.— Sir William Dick of Braid, p. 195 

This gentleman formed a striking example of the instability of human 
prosperity.^ He was once the wealthiest man of his time in Scotland, a 
merchant in an extensive line of commerce, and a farmer of the public 
revenue ; insomuch that, about 1640, he estimated his fortune at £200,000 
sterling. Sir William Dick was a zealous Covenanter ; and in the memor- 
able year 1641 he lent the Scottish Convention of Estates one hundred 
thousand merks at once, and thereby enabled them to support and pay their 
army, which must otherwise have broken to pieces. He afterwards advanced 
£20,000 for the service of King Charles, during the usurpation ; and having, 
by owning the royal cause, provoked the displeasure of the ruling party, ho 
was fleeced of more money, amounting in all to £65,000 sterling. 

Being in this manner reduced to indigence, he went to London to try to 
recover some part of the sums which had been lent on government security. 
Instead of receiving any satisfaction, the Scottish Croesus was thrown into 
prison, in which he died, 19th December 1655. It is said his death was 
hastened by the want of common necessaries. But this statement is some- 
what exaggerated, if it be true, as is commonly said, that, though he was not 
supplied with bread, he had plenty of pie-crust, thence called ‘ Sir William 
Dick’s necessity.’ 

The changes of fortune are commemorated in a folio pamphlet, entitled 
The Lamentable Estate and Distressed Case of Sir William Dick [1656]. It con- 
tains several copperplates, one representing Sir William on horseback, and 
attended with guards as Lord Provost of Edinburgh, superintending the un- 
loading of one of his rich argosies ; a second exhibiting him as arrested, and in 
the hands of the bailiffs ; a third presents him dead in prison. The tract is 
esteemed highly valuable by collectors of prints. The only copy I ever saw 
upon sale was rated at £30. 

Note 25.— Meeting at Talla Linns, p. 200 

This remarkable convocation took place upon 15th June 1682, and an 
account of its confused and divisive proceedings may be found in Michael 
Shields’s Faithf ul Contendings Displayed, Glasgow, 1780, p. 21. It affords a 
singular and melancholy example how much a metaphysical and polemical 
spirit had crept in amongst these unhappy sufferers, since, amid so many 
real injuries which they had to sustain, they were disposed to add disagree- 
ment and disunion concerning the character and extent of such as were only 
imaginary. 

Note 26.— Doomster or Dempster of Court, p. 247 

The name of this officer is equivalent to the pronouncer of doom or 
sentence. In this comprehensive .sense, the judges of the Isle of Man were 
called Dempsters. But in Scotland the word was long restricted to the 
designation of an official person, whose duty it was to recite the sentence 
after it had been pronounced by the Court, and recorded by the clerk ; on 
which occasion the Dempster legalised it by the words of form, ‘ And this I 
pronounce for doom.’ For a length of years, the office, as mentioned in the 
text, was held in commendam with that of the executioner ; for when this 
odious but necessary officer of justice received his appointment, he petitioned 
the Court of Justiciary to be received as their dempster, which was granted 
as a matter of course. 

The production of the executioner in open court, and in presence of the 
wretched criminal, had something in it hideous and disgusting to the more 
refined feelings of later times. But if an old tradition of the Parliament 
House of Edinburgh may be trusted, it was the following anecdote which 
occasioned the disuse of the dempster’s office : — 


556 


NOTES 


It chanced at one time that the office of public executioner was vacant. 
There was occasion for some one to act as dempster, and, considering the 
party who generally held the office, it is not wonderful that a locum tetieus 
was hard to be found. At length one Hume, who had been sentenced to 
transportation for an attempt to burn his own house, was induced to consent 
that he would pronounce the doom on this occasion. But when brought 
forth to officiate, instead of repeating the doom to the criminal, Mr. Hume 
addressed himself to their lordships in a bitter complaint of the injustice of 
his own sentence. It was in vain that he was interrupted, and reminded of 
the purpose for which he had come hither. ‘I ken what ye want of me weel 
eneugh,’ said the fellow, ‘ye want me to be your dempster ; but I am come 
to be none of your dempster : I am come to summon you. Lord T — — , and 

you. Lord E , to answer at the bar of another world for the injustice you 

have done me in this.’ In short, Hume had only made a pretext of eomply- 
ing with the proposal, in order to have an opportunity of reviling the J udges 
to their faces, or giving them, in the phrase of his country, ‘a sloan.’ He 
was hurried off amid the laughter of the audience, but the indecorous scene 
which had taken place contributed to the abolition of the office of dempster. 
The sentence is now read over by the clerk of court, and the formality of 
pronouncing doom is altogether omitted. — 

The usage of calling the dempster into court by the ringing of a handbell, 
to repeat the sentence on a criminal, is said to have been abrogated in March 
1773 {Laing). 


Note 27.— John Duke of Argyle and. Greenwich, p. 250 

This nobleman was very dear to his countrymen, who were justly proud of 
his military and political talents, and gi*ateful for the ready zeal with which 
he asserted the rights of his native country. This was never more con- 
spicuous than in the matter of the Porteous Mob, when the Ministers brought 
in a violent and vindictive bill for declaring the Lord Provost of Edinburgh 
incapable of bearing any public office in future, for not foi’eseeing a disorder 
wffiich no one foresaw, or interrupting the course of a riot too formidable to | 
endure opposition. The same bill made provision for pulling down the city 
gates and abolishing the city guard, — rather a Hibernian mode of enabling > 
them better to keep the peace within burgh in future. 

The Duke of Argyle opposed this bill as a cruel, unjust, and fanatical pro- 
ceeding, and an encroachment upon the privileges of the royal burghs of 
Scotland, secured to them by the treaty of Union. ‘ In all the proceedings 
of that time,’ said his Grace, ‘the nation of Scotland treated with the English 
as a free and independent people ; and as that treaty, my lords, had no 
other guarantee for the due performance of its articles but the faith and 
honour of a British Parliament, i^ would be both unjust and ungenerous 
should this House agree to any proceedings that have a tendency to injure it.’ 

Lord Hardwicke, in reply to the Duke of, Argyle, seemed to insinuate 
that his Grace had taken up the affair in a party point of view, to which the 
nobleman replied in the spirited language quoted in the text. Lord Hard- 
wicke apologised. The bill was much modified, and the clauses concerning 
the dismantling the city and disbanding the guard were departed from. 

A fine of £2000 was imposed on the city for the benefit of Portedus’s widow. 
She was contented to accept three-fourths of the sum, the payment of which 
closed the transaction. It is remarkable that in our day the magistrates 
of Edinburgh have had recourse to both those measures, held in such horror 
by their predecessors, as necessary steps for the improvement of the city. 

It may be here noticed, in explanation of another circumstance mentioned in 
the text, that there is a tradition in Scotland that George II., whose irascible 
temper is said sometimes to have hurried him into expressing his displeasure 
'par voie du fait, offered to the Duke of Argyle, in angry audience, some 


NOTES 


657 


menace of this nature, on which he left the presence in high disdain, and 
with little ceremony. Sir Robert Walpole, having met the Duke as he retired, 
and learning the cause of his resentment and discomposure, endeavoured to 
reconcile him to what had happened by saying, ‘ Such was his Majesty’s way, 
and that he often took such liberties with himself without meaning any 
harm. ^ This did not mend matters in MacCallummore’s eyes, who replied, in 
great disdain, ‘You will please to remember. Sir Robert, the infinite distance 
there is betwixt you and me.’ Another frequent expression of passion on the 
part of the same monarch is alluded to in the old Jacobite song— 

The fire shall get both hat and wig, 

As oft times they’ve got a’ that. 


Note 28.— Murder of the two Shaws, p. 254 

In 1828, the Author presented to the Roxburgh Club a curious volume con- 
taining the Proceedings in the Court-Mart ial held upon John, Master of Sinclair 
. . . for the Murder of Ensign Schato . . . and Captain Schato . . . I7th 
October 1708 [Laing). 


Note 29.— Borrowing Days, p. 287 

The three last days of March, old style, are called the Borrowing Days ; for, 
as they are remarked to be unusually stormy, it is feigned that March had 
borrowed them from April, to extend the sphere of his rougher sway. The 
rhyme on the subject is quoted in Leyden’s edition of the Complaynt of 
Scotland . — 

March said to Aperill 
I see three hogs upon a hill ; 

But when the borrowed days were gane, 

The three silly hogs came hirplin’ hame. 

(Laing.) 

Note 30.— Buckholmside Cheese, p. 395 
The hilly pastures of Buckholm, which the Author now surveys. 

Not in the frenzy of a dreamer’s eye, 

are famed for producing the best ewe-milk cheese in the south of Scotland. 


Note 31. — Expulsion of the Bishops from the Scottish Convention, 

p. 406 

For some time after the Scottish Convention had commenced its sittings, 
the Scottish prelates retained their seats, and said pra 3 ^ers by rotation to the 
meeting, until the character of the Convention became, through the secession 
of Dundee, decidedly Presbyterian. Occasion was then taken on the Bishop 
of Ross mentioning King James in his prayer, as him for whom they watered 
their couch with tears — on this the Convention exclaimed, they had no occa- 
sion for spiritual lords, and commanded the bishops to depart and return no 
more, Montgomery of Skelmorley breaking at the same time a coarse jest upon 
the scriptural expression used by the prelate. Davie Deans’s oracle, Patrick 
Walker, gives this account of their dismission : — ‘ When they came out, some 
of the Convention said they wished that the honest lads knew that they were put 
out, for then they would not win away with heal (whole) gowns. All the four- 
teen gathered together with pale faces, and stood in a cloud in the Parlia- 
ment Close. James Wilson, Robert Neilson, Francis Hislop, and myself were 
standing close by them. Francis Hislop with force thrust Robert Neilson upon 
them ; their heads went hard upon one another. But there being so many 


558 


NOTES 


enemies in the city fretting and gnashing their teeth, waiting for an occasion 
to raise a mob, where undoubtedly blood would have been shed, and we having 
laid down conclusions among ourselves to guard against giving the least occa- 
sion to all mobs, kept us from tearing of their gowns. 

‘ Their graceless Graces went quickly off, and neither bishop nor curate 
was seen in the streets : this was a surprising sudden change not to bo for- 
gotten. Some of us would have rejoiced more than in great sums to have seen 
these bishops sent legally down the Bow, that they might have found the weight 
of their tails in a tow to dry their hose-soles ; that they might know what hang- 
ing was, they having been active for themselves, and the main instigators to 
all the mischiefs, cruelties, and bloodshed of that time, wherein the streets of 
Edinburgh and other phaces of the land did run with the innocent, precious 
dear blood of the Lord’s people .’ — Life and Death of three famous Worthies 
(Semple, etc.), by Patrick Walker. Edin. 1727, pp. 72, 73. 


Note 32.— Half-hanged Maggie Dickson, p. 415 

In the Statistical Account of the Parish of Inveresh (vol. xvi. p. 34), Dr. 
Carlyle says, ‘ No person has been convicted of a capital felony since the year 
1728, when the famous Maggy Dickson was condemned and executed for child- 
murder in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, and was restored to life in a cart 
on her way to Musselburgh to be buried. . . . She kept an ale-house in 
a neighbouring parish for many years after she came to life again, which 
was much resorted to from curiosity.’ After the body was cut down and 
handed over to her relatives, her revival is attributed to the jolting of the 
cart, and according to Robert Chambers — taking a retired road to Mussel- 
burgh, ‘ they stopped near Peffer-mill to ge^ a dram ; and when they came 
out from the house to resume their journey, Maggie was sitting up in the cart.’ 
Among the poems of Alexander Pennecuick, who died in 1730 [1722], is one 
entitled ‘ The Merry Wives of Musselburgh’s Welcome to Meg Dickson ’ ; while 
another broadside, without any date or author’s name, is called ‘ Margaret 
Dickson’s Penitential Confession,’ containing these lines referring to her 
conviction : — 

Who found me guilty of that barbarous crime, 

And did, by law, end this wretched life of mine ; 

13ut God . . . did me preserve, etc. 


In another of these ephemeral productions hawked about the streets, called 
‘ A Ballad by J — n B s,’ are the following lines : — 

Please peruse the speech 
Of ill-hanged Maggy Dickson. 

Ere she was strung, the wicked wife 
Was sainted by the flamen (priest), 

But now, since she’s return’d to life. 

Some say she’s the old samen. 

In his reference to Maggie’s calling ‘ salt ’ after her recovery, the Author 
would appear to be alluding to another character, who went by the name of 
‘saut Maggie,’ and is represented in one or more old etchings about 1790 
{Laing). 


Note 33. — Madge Wildfire, p. 419 

In taking leave of the poor maniac, the Author may observe that the 
first conception of the character, though afterwards greatly altered, was taken 
from that of a person calling herself, and called by others. Feckless Fannie 
(weak or feeble Fannie), who always travelled with a small flock of sheep. 
The following account, fiu-nished by the persevering kindness of Mr. Train, 


NOTES 


559 


contains probably all that can now be known of her history, though many, 
among whom is the Author, may remember having heard of Feckless Fannie 
in the days of their youth. 

‘ My leisure hours,’ says Mr. Train, ‘for some time past have been mostly 
spent in searching for particulars relating to the maniac called Feckless Fannie, 
who travelled over all Scotland and England, between the years 1767 and 
1775, and whose history is altogether so like a romance, that I have been at 
all possible pains to collect every particular that can be found relative to her 
in Galloway or in Ayrshire. 

‘When Feckless Fannie appeared in Ayrshire, for the first time, in the 
summer of 1769, she attracted much notice from being attended by twelve 
or thirteen sheep, who seemed all endued with faculties so much superior 
to the ordinary race of animals of the same species as to excite universal 
astonishment. She had for each a different name, to which it answered 
when called by its mistress, and w'ould likewise obey in the most surprising 
manner any command she thought proper to give. When travelling, she 
always walked in front of her flock, and they followed her closely behind. 
When she lay down at night in the fields, for she would never enter into a 
house, they always disputed who should lie next to her, by which means she 
was kept warm, while she lay in the midst of them ; when she attempted to 
rise from the ground, an old ram, whose name was Charlie, always claimed 
the sole right of assisting her ; pushing any that stood in his way aside, until 
he arrived right before his mistress ; he then bowed his head nearly to the 
ground that she might lay her hands on his horns, which were very large ; 
he then lifted hdi- gently from the ground by raising his head. If she chanced 
to leave her flock feeding, as soon as they discovered she was gone, they all 
began to bleat most piteously, and would continue to do so till she returned ; 
they would then testify their joy by rubbing their sides against her petticoat, 
and frisking about. 

‘ Feckless Fannie was not, like most other demented creatures, fond of fine 
dress ; on her head she wore an old slouched hat, over her shoulders an old 
plaid, and carried always in her hand a shepherd’s crook ; with any of these 
articles she invariably declared she would not part for any consideration 
■whatever. When she was interrogated why she set so much value on things 
seemingly so insignificant, she would sometimes relate the history of her mis- 
fortune, •which w’as briefly as follows : — 

‘ “I am the only daughter of a wealthy squire in the north of England, 
but I loved my father’s shepherd, and that has been my ruin ; for my father, 
fearing his family would be disgraced by such an alliance, in a passion mortally 
wounded my lover with a shot from a pistol. I arrived just in time to re- 
ceive the last blessing of the dying man, and to close his eyes in death. He 
bequeathed me his little all, but I only accepted these sheep to bo my sole 
companions through life, and this hat, this plaid, and this crook, all of which 
I will carry until I descend into the grave.” 

‘ This is the substance of a ballad, eighty-four lines of which I copied down 
lately from the recitation of an old woman in this place, who says she has 
scon it in print, with a plate on the titlcrpage i-opresenting Fannie with her 
sheep behind her. As this ballad is said to have been written by Lowe, the 
jiuthor of “ Mary’s Dream,” I am surprised that it has not been noticed by 
Cromek in his Reynaim of Nithsdale and Galloivay Song ; but he perhaps 
thought it unworthy of a place in his collection, as there is very little merit 
in the composition ; which want of room prevents mo from transcribing at 
])resent. But if I thought you had never seen it, I would take an early 
opportunity of doing so. 

‘After having made the tour of Galloway in 1769, as Fannie was wander- 
ing in the neighbourhood of Moffat, on her way to Edinburgh, where, I am 
informed, she -vv'as likewise well known. Old Charlie, her favourite ram, chanced 
to break into a kale-yard, which the proprietor observing, let loose a mastiff, 
that hunted the poor sheep to death. This was a sad misfortune ; it seemed 


560 


NOTES 


to renew all the pangs which she formerly felt on the death of her lover. 
She would not part from the side of her old friend for several days, and it 
was with much difficulty she consented to allow him to be buried ; but, still 
wishing to pay a tribute to his memory, she covered his grave with moss, and 
fenced it round with osiers, and annually returned to the same spot, and 
pulled the weeds from the grave and repaired the fence. This is altogether 
like a romance ; but I believe it is really true that she did so. The grave of 
Charlie is still held sacred even by the schoolboys of the present day in that 
quarter. It is now, perhaps, the only instance of the law of Kenneth being 
attended to, which says, “The grave where anie that is slaine lieth buried, 
leave untilled for seven years. Repute every grave holie so as thou be well 
advised, that in no wise with thy feet thou tread upon it.” 

‘ Through the storms of winter, as well as in the milder season of the year, 
she continued her wandering course, nor could she be prevented from doing 
so, either by entreaty or promise of reward. The late Dr. Fullarton of Rose- 
mount, in the neighbourhood of Ayr, being well acquainted with her father 
when in England, endeavoured, in a severe season, by every means in his 
power, to detain her at Rosemount for a few days until the weather should 
become more mild ; but when she found herself rested a little, and saw her 
sheep fed, she raised her crook, which was the signal she always gave for the J 
sheep to follow her, and off they all marched together. 

‘But the hour of poor Fannie’s dissolution was now at hand, and she 
seemed anxious to arrive at the spot where she was to terminate her mortal 
career. She proceeded to Glasgow, and, while passing through that city, ^ 
crowd of idle boys, attracted by her singular appearance, together with the 
novelty of seeing so many sheep obeying her command, began to torment her 
with their pranks, till she became so irritated that she pelted them with 
bricks and stones, which they returned in such a manner that she was actually 
stoned to death between Glasgow and Anderston. 

‘To the real history of this singular individual, credulity has attached 
several superstitious appendages. It is said that the farmer who was the 
cause of Charlie’s death shortly afterwards drowned himself in a peat-hag ; 
and that the hand with which a butcher in Kilmarnock struck one of the 
other sheep became powerless, and withered to the very bone. In the summer 
of 1769, when she was passing by New Cumnock, a young man, whose name 
was William Forsyth, son of a farmer in the same parish, plagued her so much 
that she wished he might never see the morn ; i;pon which he went home and 
hanged himself in his father’s barn. And I doubt not many such stories may 
yet be remembered in other parts where she had been.’ 

So far Mr. Train. The Author can only add to this narrative, that Feckless 
Fannie and her little flock were well known in the pastoral districts. 

In^ attempting to introduce such a character into fiction, the Author felt 
the risk of encountering a comparison with the Maria of Sterne ; and, besides, 
the mechanism of the story would have been as much retarded by Feckless 
Fannie’s flock as the night-march of Don Quixote was delayed by Sancho’s 
tale of the sheep that were ferried over the river. 

The Author has only to add that, notwithstanding the pi’eciseness of his 
friend Mr. Train s statement, there may be some hopes that the outrage on 
Feckless Fannie and her little flock was not carried to extremity. There is 
no mention of any trial on account of it, wdiich, had it occurred in the manner 
stated, would have certainly taken place ; and the Author has understood 
that it was on the Border she was last seen, about the skirts of the Cheviot 
Hills, but without her little flock. 


Note 34. — Shawfield’s Mob, p. 423 

In 1/25 there was a great riot in Glasgow on account of the malt tax. 
Among the troops brought in to restore order was one of the independent com- 


NOTES 


561 


r 


pames of Highlanders levied in Argyleshire, and distinguished in a lampoon 
^^11 j Cianipbell of Garrick and his Highland thieves.’ It was 

called Shawfield s Mob, because much of the popular violence was directed 
against Daniel Campbell, Esq., of Shawlield, M.P., provost of the town. 


V Note 35. — Death op Francis Gordon, p. 444 

This exploit seems to have been one in which Patrick Walker prided 
himself not a little ; and there is reason to fear that that excellent person 
^ would have highly resented the attempt to associate another with him in the 
1 slaughter of a King’s Life Guardsman. Indeed, he would have had the more 
r^ght to be offended at losing any share of the glory, since the party against 
' already three to one, besides having the advantage of firearms, 

f The manner in which he vindicates his claim to the exploit, without com.- 
; mitting himself by a direct statement of it, is not a little amusing. It is as 
follows : — 

‘1 shall give a brief and true account of that man’s death, which I did not 
design to do while I w'as upon the stage. I resolve, indeed (if the Lord 
will), to leave a more full account of that and many other remarkable steps 
of the Lord s dispensations towards mo thorow my life. It wus then commonly 
said that Francis Gordon was a volunteer out of wuckedness of principles, 
and could not stay with the troop, but was still raging and ranging to catch 
r hiding suffering people. Meldrum and Airly’s troops lying at Lanark upon 
. the first day of March 1682, Mr. Gordon and another wicked comrade, with 
. their two servants and four horses, came to Kilcaigow, two miles from 
Lanark, searching for William Caigow and others, under hiding. Mr. 
Gordon, rambling throw the town, offered to abuse the women. At 
night, they came a mile further to the easter seat, to Kobert Muir’s, he 
. being also under hiding. Gordon’s comrade and the two seri’ants went to 
bed, but he could sleep none, roaring all night for women. When day came, 
he took only lus sword in his hand, and came to Moss-platt, and some 
men (who had been in the fields all night) seeing him, they fled, and he 
pursued. James Wilson, Thomas Young, and myself, having been in a meet- 
ing all night, were lyen down in the morning’. We were alarmed, think- 
• ing there were many mo than one ; he pursued hard, and overtook us. 

■ Thomas Young said, “Sir, what do ye pursue us for?” He said, “He was 
- come to send us to hell.” James Wilson said, “That shall not be, for we 
will defend ourselves.” He said, “That either he or we should go to it now.” 
^ He run his sword furiously thorow James Wilson’s coat. James fired upon 
him, but missed him. All the time he cried, “Damn his soul ! ” He got a 
shot in his head out of a pocket pistol, rather fit for diverting a boy than 
killing such a furious, mad, brisk man, which, notwithstanding, killed him 
dead. The foresaid William Caigow and Robert Muir came to us. We 
searched him for papers, and found a long scroll of sufferers’ names, either to 
kill or take. I tore it all in pieces. He had also some Popish books and 
'' bonds of money, with one dollar, which a jfoor man took off the ground ; all 
: which we put in his pocket again. Thus, he was four miles from Lanark, 
and near a mile from his comrade, seeking his own death, and got it. And 
for as much as we have been condemned for this, I could never see how any 
one could condemn us that allows of self-defence, which the laws both of God 
and nature allow to every creature. For my own part, my heart never smote 
me for this. When I saw his blood run, I wished that all the blood of the 
Lord’s stated and avowed enemies in Scotland had been in his veins. Having- 
such a clear call and opportunity, I would have rejoiced to have seen it all 
gone out with a gush. I have many times wondered at the greater part of 
the indulged, lukewarm ministers and professors in that time, who made more 
noise of murder when one of these enemies has been killed, even in our own 
defence, than of twenty of us being murdered by them. None of these men 

36 


VII 


562 


NOTES 


present was challenged for this but myself. Thomas Young thereafter suffei’ed 
at Machline, but was not challenged for this ; Robert Muir was banished ; 
James Wilson outlived the persecution ; William Caigow died in the Canon- 
gate tolbooth, in the beginning of 1685, Mr. Wodrow is misinformed, who 
says that he suffered unto death ’ [pp. 165-167]. 


Note 36.— Tolling to Service in Scotland, p. 461 

In the old days of Scotland, when persons of property, unless they happened 
to be nonjurors, were as regular as their inferiors in attendance on parochial 
worship, there was a kind of etiquette in waiting till the patron or acknow- 
ledged great man of the parish should make his appearance. This ceremonial 
was so sacred in the eyes of a parish beadle in the Isle of Bute, that, the kirk 
bell being out of order, he is said to have mounted the steeple every Sunday, 
to imitate with his voice the successive summonses which its mouth of metal 
used to send forth. The first part of this imitative harmony was simply the re- 
petition of the words ‘ Bell bell, bell bell, ’ two or three times, in a manner as much 
resembling the sound as throat of flesh could imitate throat of iron. ‘ Bellhm ! 
bellum ! ’ was sounded forth in a more urgent manner ; but he never sent forth 
the third and conclusive peal, the varied tone of which is called in Scotland 
the ‘ringing-in,’ until the two principal heritors of the parish approached, when 
the chime ran thus : — 

Belliiin Bellellmn, 

Bernera and Knockdow’s coming ! 

Bellum Bellellum, » 

Bernera and Knockdow’s coming ! 

Thereby intimating that service was instantly to proceed. — 

Mr. Macinlay of Borrowstounness, a native of Bute, states that Sir Walter 
Scott had this story from Sir Adam Ferguson ; but that the gallant knight had 
not given the lairds’ titles correctly — the bellman’s great men being Craich, 
Brumbuie, and Barnernie. — 1842 {Laing). 


Note 37.— Ratcliffe, p. 518 

Tliere seems an anachpnism in the history of this person. Ratcliffe, among 
other escapes from justice, was released by the Porteous mob when under 
sentence of death ; and he was again under the same predicament when the 
Highlanders made a similar jail-delivery in 1745. He was too sincere a Whig 
to embrace liberation at the hands of the Jacobites, and in reward was made 
one of the keepers of the tolbooth. So at least runs a constant tradition. 


I 


GLOSSARY 

OF 

WORDS, PHRASES, AND ALLUSIONS 


Abune, aboon, abo^•o 
Acquent, acquainted 
Ad avisandum, reserved 
for consideration 
Adjournal, Books of. 

See Books of Adjournal 
Adminicle, a collateral 
proof 

Again, in time for, before 
Ain, own 
Air, early 

Aird’s Moss, the scene of 
a skirmish in Ayrshire, 
on 20th July 1680 
Airn, iron 

Airt, to direct, point out 
the way 
Aith, oath 
Aits, oats 
Allenarly, solely 
A-low, on fire 
Altringham, the mayor 
OF (p. 455), a well-known 
Cheshire proverb 
Amaist, almost 
Ance, anes, once 
Andro Ferrara, a High- 
land broadsword 
Anker, 10 wine gallons 
Ansars, helpers ; particu- 
larly those inhabitants 
of Medina who helped 
Mohammed when he fied 
from Mecca 

Anti-Jacobin, George Can- 
ning, the statesman, in 
whose burlesque play. 
The Rovers; or, Double 
Arrangement, printed in 
The Anti - Jacobin, the 
ghost of Prologue’s, not 
the Author’s, grand- 
mother appears 
Aqua mirabilis, the won- 
derful water, a cordial 


made of spirit of wine 
and spices 

Argyle, Earl of, his 
attempt of 1686, his 
rising in Scotland in sup- 
port of Monmouth in 
1685 

Arniston chield. Robert 
Dundas of Arniston, the 
elder, succeeded Duncan 
Forbes of Culloden as 
Lord President in 1748 
Arriage and carriage, a 
pljrase in old Scotch 
leases, but bearing no 
precise meaning 
Assembly of Divines, the 
Westminster Confession 
of Faith, which, with the 
Longer and Shorter Cate- 
chisms, constitute the 
standards of doctrine of 
the Presbyterians 
Artes perdit^, lost arts 
Aught, eight ; aughty - 
NINE, the year 1689 
Aught, possession 
Auld, old ; AULD sorrow, 
old wretch 
Ava, at all 
Awmous, alms 
Awmrie, the cupboard 

Back-cast, a reverse, mis- 
fortune 

Back-friend, a supporter, 
abettor 

Balfour’s Practiques ; 
OR, A System of the 
MORE ancient LaW OF 
Scotland (1754), by Sir 
James Balfour, President 
of the Court of Session in 
1567 

Band, bond 


Bark, Bawtie, Compare 
Sir D. Lyndsay’s Com- 
playnt of Bagsche ... to 
Bawtie, the King’s Best 
Belovit Dog 
Barkened, tanned 
Baron bailie, the baron’s 
deputy in a burgh of 
barony 

BatHer, to fatigue by cease- 
less prating 
Bauld, brave, hardy 
Bauson-faced, having a 
white spot on tlie fore- 
head 

Bawbee, a halfpenny 
Baxter, a baker 
Bean-hool, bean-hull, pod 
Bechounched, beflounced, 
decked out in ridiculous 
fashion 

Bedral, beadle, sexton 
Bedreddin Hassan. See 
Arabian Nights : ‘ Nou- 
reddin and his Son ’ 
Beever, Belvoir, the seat 
of the Duke of Rutland, 
on the border of Leices- 
tershire 

Belyve, directly 
Bend-leather, thick sole- 
leather 

Benefit of clergy, the 
right to claim, like the 
clergy, exemption from 
the civil courts 
Ben the house, inside, 
into the inner room 
Bess of Bedlam, a female 
lunatic 

Bestial, homed cattle 
Bicker, a wooden vessel 
Bide, wait, stay ; bear, 
rest under ; bide a wee, 
wait a minute 


564 


GLOSSAEY 


Bien, comfortable 
Bigoonets, a lady’s head- 
dress 

Bike, a liive, swarm 
Bink, a wall plate-rack 
Biukie, a lively fellow, 
young spark 

Birthnight, the court 
festival held on the even- 
ing of a royal birthday 
Bittock, a little bit, pro- 
verbially a considerable 
distance 

Black, Dr. David, a zeal- 
ous ScottishPresby tcrian 
in the reign of James VI. 
Blair, Robert, a promi- 
nent Presbyterian min- 
ister, of Bangor in Ireland 
Blink, a glance 
Blue pluais, bullets 
Bluidy Mackenzie, Sir 
George, Lord Advocate, 
and an active prosecutor 
of the Cameronians in the 
reign of Charles II. 
Boddle, ^th of a penny 
Boobie, the lowest scholar 
on the form, a dunce 
Books of Adjournai,, con- 
taining the minutes and 
orders, especially of ad- 
journal, of the Court of 
Judiciary of Scotland, 
it being a peremptory 
court 

Boot-hose, coarse blue 
worsted hose Avorn in 
place of boots 
BoUKING - WASHING, thc 
annual washing of the 
family linen in a peculiar 
ley (bouk) 

Bountith, a perquisite 
Bourock, a mound, hillock 
Bow, a boll (measure) 
Bow-head, leading from 
the High Street to the 
Grassmarket in Edin- 
burgh 

Bowie, a milk-pail 
Braw, brave, fine, good ; 

BRAws, fine clothes 
Brecham, collar of a cart- 
horse 

Brockit (cow), with a 
speckled face 
Brogue, a Highland shoe 
Broo, taste for, opinion of 
Brose, oatmeal over which 
boiling water has been 
poured 

Bruce, Robert, of Edin- 
burgh, a champion of 
spiritual authority in the 
reign of James VI. 
Brugh and land, town 
and country 

Bruilzie, a scufiQe, tumult 


Brunstane, brimstone, 
sulphur 

Buckholmside, a village 
of Roxburghshire close 
to Galashiels 
Duller, to belloAV 
Bull of Phalaris, an 
invention for roasting 
people alive, devised by 
Phalaris, ruler of Agri- 
gentum in ancient Sicily 
— so tradition 
Bullsegg, a gelded bull 
Busk, to dress up, arrange 
Bye, besides ; past 
Byre, cow-house, cow-shed 

Ca’, to call 

C.ESAREAN PROCESS, a SUr- 

gical operation to secure 
delivery (as in the case of 
Caesar) 

Cag, a small cask 
Caird, a strolling tinker 

C A LENDAR WANTING AN EVE. 
See Arabian Nights: ‘Story 
of the First Calendar ’ 
Callant, a lad 
Caller, fresh 
Calliver-men, men armed 
Avith muskets 
Cambrian antiquary, 
Thomas Pennant, the 
traA’^eller 

Campvere skipper, a 
trader to Holland. 
Campvere or Camphiro, 
on the island of Wal- 
chcren, Avas the scat of a 
privileged Scottish trad- 
ing factory from 1444 to 
1795 

Canny, propitious, au- 
spicious 

Canty, mirthful, jolly 
Caption, a Avrit to im- 
prison a debtor 
Carcake, or carecake, a 
small cake baked Avith 
eggs and eaten on Shrove 
Tuesday, in Scotland 
Carle, a felloAv 
Cauline, a beldam, old 
AA'oman 

Caroline Park. See Roy- 
stoun 

Carried, thc mind waA'er- 
ing, AA'andering 
Carritch, thc Catechism 
Cast, lot, fate ; a throAv ; a 
lift, ride 

Cast-bye, a castaAvay 
Ca’-throav, an ado, a roAV 
Cato’s daughter, Porcia, 
Avdfe of Brutus, who 
stabbed Caesar 
Cato the Censor, the cele- 
brated Roman, Avrote a 
book about rural affairs 


Cauld, cold 
Cauldrife, chilly 
Cautelous, cautious, care- 
ful : 

Cela £toit autrefois, 
etc. (p. 53S), it used to 
be so, but Ave have 
changed all that noAV , 

CeSSIO 30 N 0 RUM, SUr- I 
render of eftects i 

Chai'ts, jaAvs i 

Chalders, an old dry j 
measure = nearly 16 qrs. 
of corn 

Chamber of deas, the best 
bedroom 

Chance-medley, an unde- 
signed occurrence not 
purely accidental 
Change-house, a small inn 
Chappit, struck (of a 
clock) 

Chappit back, beaten, de- 
terred, daunted 
ChEVERONS, glOA'CS 
CiiiELD, a young felloAv 
Chop, a shop 

Clacuan, a Highland ham- 
let 

ClAISE, CLAES, CLAITHS, 

clothes 

Clarissimus ictus, one 
Avho is a famous lawyer 
Clat, a hoard of money 
Clavers, foolish gossip 
Claav up mittens, to re- 
buke severely, tell homo 
truths 

Cleckit, hatched 
Cleek, to catch, seize 
Cleugh, a ravine 
Close-head, the entranceof 
a blind alley, a favourite 
rendezvous for gossips ' 
Clubbed (of hair), gathered 
into a club-shaped knot 
at the back of the head 
Clute, a hoof, single beast 
CoccEiAN, a folloAver of 
John Cocceius of Ley- 
den (d. 1669), who held i 
that the Old Testament 
shadowed forth the his- 
tory of the Christian 
Church 

CocKERNONiE, a lady’s top- 
knot 

Cod, a pilloAV, cushion 
Cognosce, to examine 
judicially for insanity 
Columella, a Roman 
writer on agriculture and 
similar topics 
Commentaries on Scot- 
tish Criminal Juris- 
prudence, 1797, by David 
Hume, Baron of the I 
Exchequer in Scotland 
CoMUS, by Milton 


GLOSSARY 


665 


Condescendence, an enu- 
meration of particulars, 
a Scots law term 

CONFESSIO EXTRAJUDI- 
CIALIS, etc. (p. 242), an 
unofficial confession is a 
nullity, and cannot be 
quoted in evidence 
Couch a hogshead, to lie 
down to sleep 
Coup, to overturn ; to 
barter 

CouTHY, agreeable, pleasing 
Cowley’s complaint, his 
poem with that title, 
stanza 4 
CowT, a colt 
CuACK, gossip, talk 
Craft, a croft, small farm 
Craigmillar, a castle near 
Edinburgh, a residence of 
Queen Mary 

Creagh, stolen cattle ; a 
foray 

Crepe, to curl, crimp 
Crewels, cruels, scrofu- 
lous swellings on the neck 
Criffel, a mountain on 
the Scottish side of the 
Solway. When Skiddaw 
is capped with clouds, 
rain falls soon after on 
Criltel 

Crining, pining 
Crook a hough, to bend a 
joint, especially the knee- 
joint 

Cruppen, crept 

CUFFIN, QUEER, a jUSticC 
of peace 

Cuivis EX POPULO, one of 
the people 
Cull, a fool 

Cummer, a comrade, gossip 
Cum RAYS, or Cumbraes, in 
the Firth of Clyde 
Curch, a woman’s cap 
Cu’ross, Culross, a village 
on the Firth of Forth 
CuRPEL, crupper 
Cutter’s law, thieves’ or 
rogues' law 

Cutty quean, a worthless 
young woman 

Daffing, frolicsome jesting 
Daft, crazy, beside oneself 
Daidling, trifling, loiter- 
ing 

Daiker, to saunter, jog 
along 

Dalkeith, one of the seats 
of the Duke of Buccleuch 
Dallas on Styles ; or. 
System of Stiles as 

NOW PRACTICABLE WITH- 
IN THE Kingdom of Scot- 
land, 1697, by George 
Dallas, sometime deputy- 


keeper of the privy seal 
of Scotland 
Darg, a day’s work 
Deas, chamber of, the 
best bedroom 
Deave, to deafen 
Debito tempore, at tlio 
proper time 

De die in diem, from day 
to day 

Deevil’s buckie, a limb of 
Satan 

Deil haet, the devil a bit 
Demens, qui nimbos, etc. 
(p. 1), the madman, wlio 
sought to rival the rain- 
clouds and the inimit- 
able thunder, with brazen 
din and the tread of 
horny-hoofed steeds 
Demi -PIQUE saddle, one 
with low peaks or points 
Ding, to knock 
Dinnle, a thrilling blow 
Dirl, a thrilling knock 
Dit, to stop, close up (the 
mouth) 

Dittay, indictment 
Divot, a thin flat turf; 

divot-cast, a turf-pit 
Doch an’ dorroch, a 
stirrup-cup, parting-cup 
Doer, an agent, factor 
Doited, stupid, confused 
Donnard, stupid 
Donnot, or donaught, a 
good-for-nothing person 
Doo, a dove 
Dookit, ducked 
Dooms, utterly 
Door-cheek, the door-post 
Double Carritch, the 
Larger Catechism of the 
Church of Scotland 
Douce, quiet, respectable 
Dought, was able to 
Dour, stubborn, obstinate 
Dow, to be able ; downa, 
do not like to 
Dreich, slow, leisurely 
Drow, a qualm 
Dry multure, a duty of 
corn paid to a miller 
Duds, ragged clothes ; 

DUDDY, ragged 
Dulcis Amaryllidis irac, 
the anger of gentle 
woman 

Dunch, to jog or punch 
D’une grande dame, of a 
great lady, lady of fashion 
Dunlop (cheese), in Ayr- 
shire 

Durk, or DIRK, a High- 
lander’s dagger 
Dyester, a dyer 

ficLAiRcissEMENT, ail ex- 
planation 


Edict Naut.®, etc., in an- 
cient Rome, imposed lia- 
bility for loss or damage 
to property committed 
to carriers, innkeepers, 
and stable-keejiers 
Ee, eye ; een, eyes 
Effectual calling. See 
The Shorter Catechism, 
Qu. 31 

Effeir of, equivalent to 
Eik, to add 
Elshin, an awl 
Eme, uncle 

Emery, John, actor who 
excelled in rustic parts, 
and iilayed Dandie Din- 
mont, Ratcliife, and simi- 
lar characters of Scott’s 
novels 

Eneuch, eneugh, enow, 
enough 

Enlevement, the abduc- 
tion of the heroine 
Ethwald, one of Joanna 
Baillie’s Plays on the 
Passions, this one turning 
on Ambition. The pass- 
age is from Part I. Act 
iii. Sc. 5 

Exauctorate, to dismiss 
from service 

Ex JURE SANGUINIS, by 

blood, heredity 

Fama clamosa, notoriety 
Farinaceus, or Farin- 
ACius, Prosper Farinacci, 
a celebrated Roman 
writer on criminal juris- 
prudence, lived 1544-1613 
Fash, trouble ; to trouble ; 

fashious, troublesome 
Fasherie, trouble 
Fathers Conscript, the 
senators of ancient Rome; 
here the chosen fathers 
(of the town) 

Fatuus, furiosus, natur- 

ALITER IDIOTA, foolisll, 

mad, born idiot 
Fauld, to fold 
Fause Monteath, the re- 
puted betrayer of Wallace 
Faut, fault 

Feckless, insignificant, 
feeble 

Fend, to provide 
Ferguson, or Fergusson, 
Robert, Scottish poet, 
born 1750, died 1774 
File, to foul, disorder 
Fit, foot 

Flats and sharps, sword, 
using the sword 
Flee, a fly 
Fleq, a fright 
Fliskmahoy, a giddy, 
thoughtless person 


566 


GLOSSARY 


Flow-moss, a morass 
Footman, running. See 
Note 9 to Bride of Lam- 
mei'moor 

Foranent, directly oppo- 
site to 

Forbear, forefather 
Forbes, Duncan, appoin- 
ted Lord President of the 
Court of Session in 1737. 
See footnote, p. 403 
Forbye, besides 
Fore - hammer, sledge- 
hammer 

Forgather, to come to- 
gether, become intimate 
Forpit, |th of a peck 
Fou, full, drunk 
Frigate Whins, more cor- 
rectly Figgate Whins, a 
tract of sand hillocks 
and whin bushes between 
Portobello and Leith 
Fugit, etc. (p. 135), time 
is flying beyond recall 
Fyke, to move restlessly 
in the same place 

Gait-milk, goat-milk 
Gaitts, or GYTES, or getts, 
brats, urchins 
Gaius (Lincolnshire), the 
Host in Pilgrim’s Progress 
Gallio. See Acts xviii. 12- 
27 

Game arm, a crooked, lame 
arm 

Gang, to go 
Gar, to make, oblige 
Gardyloo, from French 
gardez I’eau, an Edin- 
burgh cry Avhen dirty 
water was thrown out of 
a window 

Gare-brained, giddy,., 
thoughtless 

Gate, gait, way, direction, 
manner ; nae gate, no- 
where 

Gaun, going 

Gaun pleas, pending law- 
suits 

Gaunt, to yawn 
Gawsie, grand, fine 
Gay sure, pretty sure ; 
gay and well, pretty 
well 

Gear, property 
Gee, to take the, to take 
the pet, turn pettish 
Gie, give ; gien, given 
Gif-gaf, mutual giving 
GiLbY, GiLPiE, a lively 
young girl 

Girdle, a circular iron 
plate for baking scones, 
cakes 

Girn, to grin, grimace 
Glaiks, to fling the, in 


one’s een, to deceive, 
blind 

Glede, gled, the kite 
Gleg, active, keen ; gleg 
AS A GLED, hungry as a 
hawk 

Gliff, an instant 
Glim, a light, hence any- 
thing at all 

Glower, to stare hard 
Gorbals, a suburb on the 
south side of Glasgow 
Gousty, dreary, haunted 
Goutte, a drop 
Gowan, a dog daisy 
Gowden, golden 
Gowpen, a double handful 
of meal, the perquisite of 
a miller’s servant 
Graith, apparatus of any 
kind, harness 

Grantham gruel, a Lin- 
colnshire proverb, ridi- 
culing exaggerations of 
speech 
Grat, wept 
Gree, to agree 
Gree, pre-eminence 
Greeshoch, a turf fire 
without flame, smoulder- 
ing embers 
Greet, to cry, weep 
Grey-peard, or grey- 
beard, a stone jug for 
holding ale or liquor 
Gudeman, the husband, 
head of the house 
Gudesire, grandfather 
Gudewife, the wife, head 
of the household 
Guide, to treat, direct ; 

GUIDING, treatment 
Gulley, a large knife 
G use’s grass, the area of 
grass a goose grazes dur- 
ing the summer 
Gutter-blood, one meanly 
born 

Gybe, a pass 

Gyte, a young boy ; clean 
GYTE, quite crazy 

Hadden, held 
Haddo’s Hole, a portion 
of the nave of the ancient 
collegiate church, now 
incorporated with St. 
Giles’ Cathedral, Edin- 
burgh 

Haffets, temples 
Hafflins, young, entering 
the teens 

Haft, custody; to estab- 
lish, fix 

Hagbuts of found, fire- 
arms made of cast metal 
(found) 

Hale, or haill, whole, 

1 entire 


Hallan, a partition in a 
Scotch cottage 
Hand-waled, remarkable, 
notorious 

Harle, to trail, drag 
Haud, hold 

Havings, beliaviour, man- 
ners 

H A w K I T, white - faced , 

having white spots or 
streaks 

Heal, health, felicity ; 

healsome, wholesome 
Hellicat, wild, desperate 
Hempie, a rogue 
Heritors, the landowners 
in a Scotch parish 
Herse, hoarse 
Hership, plundering by 
armed force 
Het, hot 

Highland Host. See 
Highlandmen in 1677, in 
Glossary to Old Mortality 
Hinny, honey, a term of 
affection 

Hirplin’, limping 
Hit (at backgammon), a 
game, a move in the 
game 

Hog, a sheep older than a 
lamb that has not been 
shorn 

Holborn Hill backward, 
the position of criminals 
on their way to execution 
at Tyburn 

Holland, fens of, the 
southern division of Lin- 
colnshire, adjoining the 
Wash 

Homologate, to approve, 
ratify, sanction 
How, a hollow 
Howdie, a midwife 
Howff, a haunt 
Hussy, a housewife case, 
needlecase 

Ilk, ilka, each ; ilk, the 
same name; ilka -day, 
every-day 

Imposthumes, abscesses, 
collections of pus 
In bye, inside the house 
In commendam, in con- 
junction with 
In confitentem, etc. (p. 
242), the judge’s function 
ceases when there is con- 
fession of the crime 
Ingan, an onion 
Ingine, ingenuity, talent 
In hoc statu, in this case 
Inimicitiam contra, etc. 
(p. 264), enmity against 
all mankind 

In iNiTiALiBUS, to begin 
with 


In loco parentis, in place 
of the parent 
Input, contribution 
In re-m versam, charge- 
able against the estate 
Inter apices juris, on 
high points of laAv 
Inter parietes, within 
doors 

Inter rusticos, a mere 
rustic 

Intonuit l^vum, tlie 
thunder is heard on the 
left 

Intromit with, to interfere 
with 

Jagg, a prick 

James’s place of refuge, 
in 1595 
Jark, a seal 
Jaud, a jade 

Jink, a dodge, lively trick 
Jo, a sweetlieart 
Jow, to toll 

Jus DiviNUM, divine right 

Kail, or kale, cabbage, 
broth made of greens, 
dinner ; kail - w'orm, 
caterpillar ; kale-yard, 
vegetable garden 
Kain, or CANE, a rent paid 
in kind 

Kame, to comb 
Kay’s caricatures, in A 
Series of Portraits and 
Caricature Etchings of Old 
Edinburgh characters, 
by John Kay, 1837-38 ; 
new ed,, 1877 
Keelyvine, a lead pencil 
Kenspeckle, conspicuous, 
odd 

Killing time, the Cove- 
nanters’ name for the 
period of Claverhouse’s 
persecutions in the West 
of Scotland 

Kittle, ticklish, slippery 
Knaveship, a small due in 
meal paid to the under- 
miller 
Kye, cows 

Kythe, to seem or appear 

Laiking, sporting, larking 
Lamour, amber 
Landward, inland, 
country-bred 

Lane, alone ; their lane, 
themselves 
Lauch, law 
Lavrock, a lark 
Lawing, the account, bill 
Lawyers from Holland. 
Many of the Scottish 
' lawyers and doctors were 
educated at Leyden and 


GLOSSARY 

Utrecht in the 17th and 
18th centuries 
Lay, on the, on the look- 
out 

Leap, Laurence, you’re 
LONG enough. An adapt- 
ation or extension of 
the proverbial Lazy Law- 
rence or Long Lawrence 
Leasing - making, high 
treason 
Lee, a lie 

Leicester beans, exten- 
sively gro^vn in Leicester- 
shire ; hence the proverb, 
‘Shake a Leicestershire 
man by the collar, and 
you shall hear the beans 
rattle in his belly ’ 
Lennox, the, a former 
county of Scotland, em- 
bracing Dumbartonshire 
and parts of Stirlingshire, 
Perthshire, and Renfrew- 
shire 

Lese-majesty, treason 
Lift, the sky 
Limmer, a jade, scoundrel 
Lincolnshire Gaius. See 
Gains 

Linn, a cascade, waterfall 
Lippen, to rely upon, trust 
to 

Livingstone, John, an in- 
fluential Presbyterian 
during the Common- 
wealth, ministerat Stran- 
raer and Ancrum 
Livingstone, John, sailor 
IN Borrowstounness. 
See Patrick Walker’s Life 
of Peden, p. 107 
Lock, the perquisite of a 
servant in a mill, usually 
a handful (lock) or two 
of meal 

Lockermachus, the local 
pronunciation in Scott’.s 
day of Longformacus, a 
village in Berwickshire 
Lockington wake, a 
Leicestershire yearly 
merrymaking or festival 
Loco tutoris, in the place 
of a guardian 

Loof, the palm of the 
hand 

Loot, let, permitted 
Lord of seat, a judge 
Lord of state, a noble- 
man 

Lound, quiet, tranquil 
Lounder, to thump, beat 
Low, a flame 

Lowe, John, author of 
‘Mary’s Dream,’ died 
1798. See biography in 
Cromek, Remains of Gallo- 
way Song (1810) 


567 

Luckie, a title given to 
old women 

Luckie dad, grandfather 
Lug, the ear 
Lum, a chimney 
Lying -DOG, a kind of 
setter 

Macheath, a highwayman, 
the hero of Gay’s Beggar’s 
Opera 

Magg (coals), to ^ve short 
quantity, purloining the 
difference 

Maggot, a whim, crotchet 
Magna est veritas, etc. 
(p. 11), truth is great, 
and prevail it will 
Mail, to stain 
Mail-duties, rent ; mail- 
ing, or MAIL, a farm rent 
Mair by token, especially 
as 

Maistry, mastery, power 
Man-sworn, perjured 
Manty, mantle 
MaNU . . . NON BELLE, etC. 
(p. 488), it is not becoming 
to lift one’s hand in jest 
and over the wine. See 
Catullus, xii. 

Maritornes, a coarse 
serving - wench whom 
Don Quixote mistook for 
a lady of noble birth 
Mark of Bellorave. See 
‘ Same again,’ etc. 
Mashackered, clumsily 
cut, hacked 
Mass John, a parson 
Matheus, or Matth.eus, 
Anton, one of a family 
of celebrated German 
writers on jurisprudence, 
the ‘ second ’ Anton pro- 
fessor at Utrecht from 
1636 to 1654 
Maukin, a hare 
Maun, must 

Maunder, to talk incoher- 
ently, nonsense 
Maut, malt 
Maw, to mow 
Meal-ark, meal-chest 
Mear, a mare 
Mell, to meddle 
Men of Marsham, etc., a 
Lincolnshire proverb, 
signifying disunion is the 
cause of ill-success 
Mensefu’, becoming, man- 
nerly 

Merk=1s. IJd. 

Merse, Berwickshire 
Messan, a lapdog, cur 
Mexican monarch. Guate- 
mozin, the Aztec em- 
peror who, when put to 
the torture by Cortes, re- 


568 


GLOSSARY 


preached a fellow- 
sutferer, groaning Avith 
anguish, by asking, ‘ Do 
you think then I am 
enjoying my bed (lit. 
bath) of flowers ? ’ 

Middkn, a dunghill 
Mile, Scottish, about nine 
furlongs 
Milled, robbed 
Minnie, mamma 
Misca’, to abuse, malign 
Misougole, to disfigure 
Misset, displeased, out of 
humour 

Miss Katies, mosquitoes 
Mister, want 
Mixen, a dunghill 
Moe, or MO, more 
Monson, Sir William, 
admiral, fought against 
the Spaniards and Dutch 
in the reigns of Elizabeth 
and James I. 

Monteath, pause, the 
reputed betrayer of Wal- 
lace to the English 
Morison’s Decisions, with 
fuller title. Decisions of 
the Court of Session [Edin- 
burgh] . . . in the form of 
a Dictionary, by W. M. 
Morison, 40 vols., 1801-11 
Moss-hag, a pit in a peat 
moor 

Motty, full of motes 
‘ Much have I fear’d,’ etc. 
(p. 10), from Crabbe’s 
Boro^igh, Letter xx. 
Muckle, much 
Muir- ILL, a disease 
amongst black cattle 
SIuiR-pooTS, young grouse 
Mull, a snulf-box 
Multure, dry. See Dry 
Multure 

Mutch, a woman’s cap 
Mutchkin, a liquid mea- 
sure, containing | pint 

Naut^e, cAuroNES, etc. 

See Edict Nautai 
Neger, nigger 
Nemo me impune lacessit, 
no one wounds me with 
impunity — the motto 
that accompanies the 
thistle, the badge of the 
crown of Scotland 
Nick Moll Blood, to 
cheat the gallows 
Niffering, haggling; nif- 
FER, an exchange ; put 
his life in a niffer, 
put his life at stake, in 
jeopardy 

Nihil intere.st de pos- 
sessions, tl'.e question of 
possession is immaterial 


Noited, rapped, struck 
smartly 

Non constat, it is not 
certain 

Non cuivis, etc. (p. 44), it 
is not every one that can 
gain admittance to the 
(select) society of Corinth 
Noop, the bone at the 
elbow-joint 

Nor’ Loch, a swamp in 
Edinburgh, now Princes 
Street Gardens 
Nowte, cattle 

Oe, a grandchild 
On-ding, a heavy fall (of 
snow) 

Optat ephippia, et.c.(p. 45), 
the sluggish ox wishes 
for the horse’s trappings 
Ordinar, after her, as is 
usual with her 
Ormond, James Butler, 
first Duke of, was for 
seven years in disfavour 
through the intrigues of 
enemies 

Orrery, a mechanism re- 
presenting the motions 
of the idanets 
Out-bye, out of doors ; 

beyond, without 
OuTGATE, ostentatious dis- 
play 

Outsight and insight 
PLENISHING, goods be- 
longing to the outside 
and inside of the house 
respectively 

OwER-BYE, over the way 
OwRELAY, a cravat 

Ladder, a highwayman ; 
ON THE PAD, a highway- 
man on the look-out for 
victims 
Pair, a blow 
Paip, the Pope 
Paitrick, a partridge 
Palmer, John, of Bath, 
greatly improved the 
mail-coaches in the end 
of the 18th century 
Parochine, parish 
Parsonage, a contribution 
for the support of a 
parson 

Par voie du fait, by as- 
.sault, act of violence 
Passements, gold, silver, 
or silk lace ; passe- 
mented, laced 
Pauvre honteux, poor and 
humble-minded man 
Pav 6, the road, highway 
Pearlin-lace, bone lace, 
made of thread or silk 


Peat, proud, a person of 
intolerable pride 
Peat-hag, a pit in a peat 
moor 

Peden, Alexander, a 
celebrated Covenanting 
leader. See Old Mortality , 
Note 38 

Peeble, to pelt with stones 
Pen-gun, cracking like 
a, gabbling like a pen- 
guin 

Pennant, Thomas, a keenly 
observant naturali-st and 
traveller of the 18th 
century 

Pennecuick, Alexander, 
M.D., of Newhall, near 
Edinburgh, author of 
Jlistorical Account of the 
Blue Blanket ; died in 
1722 

Penny, Scots = i\th of a 
penny English 
Prnnystane, a stone quoit 
Penny wedding, one at 
which the ex]ienses are 
met by the guests’ 
contributions. See Burt’s 
Letters from the North of 
Scotland, Letter xi. 
Pentland, or Bullion 
Green, where Dalziel 
routed the Galloway 
Whigs in 1666 
Peregrine [Bertie], Lord 
Willoughby, one of, 
Elizabeth’s captains. The 
lines quoted are from 
‘ The Brave Lord 
Willoughby’ in Percy’s 
Reliques 

Perfervidum, etc. (p. 12), 
the liery nature of the 
Scots 

Per vigiltas et insidias, 
by snares and ambush 
Pessimi exempli, the worst 
of precedents, examples 
Pettle, to indulge, pam- 
per 

Pibroch, a bagpipe tune, 
usually for the gathering 
of a clan 

Pickle in thine ain poke- 
nook, depend on thy own 
exertions 

Picqueerings, bickerings, 
disputes 

Picturesque. See Price 
Pigg, an earthenware 
vessel, pitcher 
Pike, to pick 

Pillion mail, baggage car- 
ried on a pillion 
Pirn, a reel 
Pit, put 

Pitcairn, Dr., a well- 
known Edinburgh idiysi- 


GLOSSARY 


569 


cian, died in 1713, who 
showed skill in writing 
Latin verse 

Placed minister, one 
holding an ecclesiastical 
charge 

Plack, ^d of a penny 
Plague, trouble, annoy- 
ance 

Planked a chury, con- 
cealed a knife 
Pleasaunts, or Pleasance, 
a part of Edinburgli, 
between the Cowgate and 
Salisbury Crags 
Plenishing, furniture 
Plough-gate, as much 
land as can be tilled by 
one plough 
Ploy, a spree, game 
Pock, a poke, bag 
Pococurante, an easy- 
going, indifferent pei’son 
Posna ordinaria, usual 
punishment 

Poet of Grasmere, Words- 
worth 

PoFFLE, a small farm, piece 
of land 

Point devise, in or v.dth 
the greatest exactitude, 
propriety 

PoLLRUMPTious, uiiruly, 
restive 

Pontages, bridge-tolls 
PooRFu’, powerful 
Poppling, purling, rippling 
Poquelin, the real name 
of Moliere 

PoRTEOus Mob. The actual 
order of events was— 
Robertson’s escape, 11th 
April 1736 ; Wilson’s 
execution, 14th April ; 
Queen’s pardon for Por- 
teous reached Edin- 
burgh, 2d September ; 
riot took place, 7th 
September ; Porteous’s 
execution was fixed for 
8th September 
Pow, the head 
Price’s appropriate 

PHRASE, PICTURESQUE— 

an allusion to Sir Uvedale 
Price’s Essay on the Pic- 
turesque, 1796 
Prigg, to entreat, beg for 
Prokitor, a procurator, 
solicitor 
Propine, a gift 
PuND Scots = Is. 8d. 

PuRN, a burn, stream 
Pykit, picked, pilfered 

Quadrille table, a game 
at cards, not unlike 
ombre with a fourth 
player 


Quarry Holes, where 
duels Avere frequently 
fought, and female 
criminals sometimes 
drowned, at the foot of 
Calton Hill, not far from 
Holyrood Palace, Edin- 
burgh 

Quean, a young woman 
Queer cuffin, a justice of 
peace 

Queering, quizzing, mak- 
ing fun 

Queer the noose, the 
STiFLER, escape the 
gallows 

Quey, a young cow 
Quillet, a qui bble, subtlety 
Quivis EX POPULO, any 
ordinary citizen 
Quodammodo, in a manner, 
certain measure 
Quos DILIGIT CASTEGAT, 

whom He loveth He 
chasteneth 
Quotha, forsooth 

Rabble, to mob 
Rannel-trees, a beam 
across the fireplace for 
suspending a pot on 
Rapping, swearing falsely 
RaRI apparent NANTES, 
etc. (p. 4), they appear 
swimming, widely scat- 
tered, in the vast deep 
Ratt-rhy'me, doggerel 
verses, repeated by rote 
Rax, to stretch 
Reckan, pining, miserable 
Red, to counsel, advise 
Redding up, clearing up 
Reek, smoke 

Remedium miserabile, sad 
remedy for misfortune 
Renwick, Mr. James, the 
last of the ‘ martyrs ’ of 
the Covenant, executed 
at Edinburgh on 17th 
February 1688 
Riding of Parliament, 
the procession of digni- 
taries on their way to 
open a new session 
Rin, to run 

Rinthereout, a houseless 
vagrant 
Ripe, to search 
Rive, to tear 
Rokelay, a short cloak 
Rooms, portions of land, 
to own or occupy 
Rosa Solis, a cordial, 
formerly in great repute, 
made of spirits flavoured 
with cinnamon, orange- 
floAver, etc. 

Rouping, selling off, auc- 
tioning 


Roupit, hoarse 
Roving, raving 
Roavinq, rolling, re\'olving 
Roystoun, a mansion be- 
longing to the Duke of 
Argyle at Cramond, near 
Edinburgh ; it stood in 
Caroline Park 
Rubbit, robbed 
Rue, taen the, repented 
of 

Ruffler, a bullying beggar 
or thief 

Running footman. See 
Note 9 to Bride of Lam- 
mermoor 

Sackless, innocent, guile- 
less 

Sain, to bless 
St. Nicholas’s clerks, 
highwaymen 
Sair, sore, much 
Salmoneus, a mythical 
king Avho, arrogantly 
imitating Zeus, was slain 
by his OAvn thunderbolt. 
See Deinens, etc. 

‘ Same again, quoth Mark 
OF Bellgrave,’ a 
Leicestershire proverb. 
The story goes that a 
militia officer, exercis- 
ing his men before the 
lord -lieutenant, became 
confused, and continued 
to order ‘ The same 
again ’ 

Samen, the old, the same 
as before 
Sark, a shirt 

Sark foot, the loAver por- 
tion of the boundary 
stream between England 
and Scotland 

Sassenach, Saxon, that is, 
English 
Saunt, saint 
Saut, salt 

ScAiTH, SCATHE, harm 
Scart, a scratch 
ScLATE, slate 
Scomfish, to suffocate 
ScoupiNO, skipping 
Scour, to thrust (a knife) 
Scraughin’, screeching, 
screaming 

Screed, a mass, string 
ScRiMGEOUR, John, min- 
ister of Kinghorn, re- 
sisted the authority of 
his bishop to depose 
him, in 1620 
Scud, a sudden shower 
Sed transeat, etc. (p. 218), 
but let it pass with 
other blunders 
Seil, to sile, strain 
Seip, to ooze 


.570 


GLOSSARY 


Sell o’ ye, yourself 
Set, to suit, become 
Shankit, handled 
Shoon, shoes 
Sic, siccan, such 
Sight for sair een, ainost 
welcome sight 
Signet, writer to. See 
Writer 

Silly health, poorly 
Simmer, summer 
SiNDERED, separated, sun- 
dered 

SiNDRY, sundry, different 
Single Carritch, the 
Shorter Catechism of the 
Church of Scotland 
Singuli in solidum, singly 
responsible for the whole 
Sit doun with, endure, 
take quietly 
Skaith, harm, injury 
Skaithless, free from hann 
Skeel, skill, knowledge ; 

SKEELY, skilful, knowing 
Skelp, to slap, beat 
Skiddaw. See Criffel 
Skin and birn, wholly, in 
entirety 

Skirl, to screech, scream 
Skulduddery, breach of 
chastity, indecency 
Slake, a smear 
Sloan, abuse, rating 
Smacked calf-skin, kissed 
the Testament, taken a 
(false) oath 

Snack, a snatch of food 
Snap, a snack, hurried 
meal 

Snapper, stumble, scrape, 
moral error 

Snog and snod, neat and 
tidy 

‘Something there was,’ 
etc. (p. 102). From 

Crabbe’s The Borough, 
Letter xv. 

Sonsy, comfortable - look - 
ing, plump 

Sorted, looked after, at- 
tended to 

Sough, to sigh ; a sigh, 
rumour 
Soup, a sup 
Souther, to solder 
SowENS, a sort of gruel 
made from the soured 
siftings of oatmeal 
Spaeing, telling fortunes 
Speer, to inquire, ask 
Spiel, to climb 
Spleuchan, a Highland 
tobacco pouch 
Sporran, a Highland purse 
of goatskin 

Staig, an unbroken horse 
Stair’s Institutes, or, In- 
stitutions OF thp. Law 


OF Scotland, by James 
Dalrymple, First Vis- 
count Stair, President of 
the Court of Session, 
1609-95, a celebrated 
Scotch laAv-book 
Sted, to place, fix 
Stern, a star 
Stirk, a steer 
Stoit, to stagger 
Stoup, a wooden drinking- 
vessel 

Stow, to crop, cut off 
Straughted, stretched 
Streight, strait, trouble 
Sture, rough, hardy 
Sui generis, of its own 
kind, special 

SuMMUM BONUM, the Chief 
good, prime considera- 
tion 

Sunkets, victuals 

SURFLEET ON THE WaSH. 
The Three Tuns Inn on 
the marsh (inclosed in 
1777) beside the Welland 
at Surfleet was a resort 
of smugglers 

SwiTHER, suspense, hesita- 
tion 

Synd, to wash, rinse 

Syne, since, ago 

Syne as sune, late as soon 

Tailzie, entail 
Tait, a lock (of wool) 

Tam carum caput, a person 
so dear 
Tap, a top 

Tape out, to eke out, make 
a little go a long way 
Tap in my lap, (take up) 
my baggage and be off 
Tawpie, an awkward girl, 
foolish wench 
Tawse, a strap cut into 
narrow thongs for whip- 
ping boys 
Teind, tithe 

Tempos nemini, time (waits 
for) no man 

' Tender, in delicate health 
Ten-Mark Court, former 
Scotch small debt court 
for sums not exceeding 
ten merks (11s. 2d.) and 
servants’ wages 
Tent, care ; tak tent, to 
take care 

Thatch Groby pool wi’ 
PANCAKES, a Leicester- 
shire proverb, indicating 
an impossible promise or 
undertaking 

Thirlage, the obligation to 
grind corn at a certain 
mill, and pay certain 
dues for its maintenance, 
etc. 


Thole, to suffer, endure 
Thrawart, thrawn, 
crabbed, ill-tempered 
Thbeshie-coat, a rough 
weather coat 

Through other, con- 
fusedly, all together 
Thumkins, or thumbikins, 
the thumb-screws 
Tight, tidm, neat 
Tint, lost 

Tittie, a little pet, gener- 
ally a sister 
Tocher, dowry 
Tod, a fox 

Tom of Lincoln, the large 
bell of Lincoln Cathedral 
Tony Lumpkin, a country 
clown in Goldsmith’s She 
Stoops to Conquer 
Toom, empty ; to empty, 
pour 

Touk, took, tuck, beat (of 
a drum) 

Tow, a rope 

Town, a farm-house, with 
the outbuildings 
Toy, a woman’s cap 
Traik, to dangle after 
Treviss, a bar or partition 
between two stalls in a 
stable 

Trinquet, or trinket, to 
correspondclandestinely, 
intrigue 

Trip to the Jubilee, a 
comedy by G. Farquhar 
Trow, to believe 
Trowling, rolling 
Tully, Marcus Tullius 
Cicero, the Roman orator 
Turnpike stair, a winding 
or spiral stair 
Tutor dative, a guardian 
appointed by a court or 
magistrate 
Twal, twelve 
Twomont, a twelvemonth, 
year 

Tyne, to lose ; tyne heart 
TYNE a’, to lose heart is 
to lose everything 

Ulai. See Dan. viii. 2, 16 
Ultroneous, voluntary 
Uncanny, mischievous, not 
safe 

Unchancy, dangerous, not 
safe to meddle with 
Unco, uncommon, strange, 
serious 

Unscythed car, the Avar- 
chariots of the ancient 
Britons and Gauls bore 
scythes affixed to their 
wheels 

Upgang, ascent 
Upsides wi’, quits with 
Usquebaugh, wdiisky 


GLOSSARY 


571 


Ut FLOS IN SEPTIS, CtC. (p. 

487), as a flower springs 
up unseen in a walled 
garden 

Valeat quantum, what- 
ever it may be worth 
Vicarage, tithes 
VivAT REX, etc. (p. 276), 
long live the king, let the 
law take its course 


Wa’, a wall 

Wad, a pledge, bet ; to 
wager, bet 
Wad, would 
Wadset, a mortgage / 
Wae, woe ; sorry ; wae- 
SOME, sorrowful, sad 
Waff, whisk, sudden pufl' 
Wagging, dangling by a 
piece of skin 
Wale, to select, choose 
Wally - draigle, a poor 
weak creature, drone 
Wampishing, brandishing, 
flourishing 
Wan out, got out 
Wan-thriven, in a state of 
decline 

Ware, to spend 
Warsle, warstle, to 
Avrestle 


Wastrife, waste ; waster, 
wasteful 

Wat finger, to bring aff 
wi’ A, manage a thing 
very easily 
Watna, wot not 
Wauff, a passing glance, 
glimpse 
Waur, worse 

Wean, a young child, 
infant 

Webster, a weaver 
Weird, destiny 
Well-to-pass, well-to-do 
Whaup in the rape, 
something wrong or 
rotten 

Wheen, a few, a parcel of 
Whiles, sometimes 
Whillywha, to wheedle 
Whirrying, liurrying 
Whister-poop, a back- 
handed blow 

Whistle on his thumb, 
completely disappointed 
Whittle, a large knife 
Whorn, a horn 
Wight, wicht, powerful, 
valiant 

Willy ARD, wild, wilful, 
obstinate 

Wimple, a wile, piece of 
craft, wrinkle 
WiNNA, will not 


WoGGARWOLFE. See Eth- 
wald 

WooDiE, the halter 
Worriecow, a hobgoblin 
WoRSET, worsted 
Writer to the signet, a 
class of Scottish law- 
agents, enjoying certain 
privileges 
WuD, mad, violent 
WuLL-CAT, a wild cat 
WuN, WON, WIN, to win, 
get, gain 

WuNOWERWi’,todeal with, 
get through with 
Wuss, to wish 
W uzzENT, wizened, with ered 
Wynd, a narrow passage or 
cid-de-sac 
Wyte, blame 

Yeald (cow), one whose 
milk has dried up ; yeald 
beasts, drapes 
Yealdon, elding, fuel 
Yearn, to cause to coagu- 
late, make (cheese) 
Yerk, to bind tightly 
Yerl, an earl 
Yill, ale 

Yill-caup, a wooden drink- 
ing-vessel 

Zone, a money-belt 


INDEX 


Archibald, John, 366; conducts Jeanie 
Deans from Mrs. Glass’s, 375 ; Jeanie’s 
description of him, 401 ; consideration 
for her at Carlisle, 412, 417, 420 ; rows 
Jeanie and Mrs. Dutton home, 466 
Argyle, John, Duke of, his retort to 
Queen Caroline, 69 ; defence of the 
Porteous riot, 251 ; relations with the 
court, 363; receives Jeanie in audience, 
365 ; takes her to Richmond, 376 ; rela- 
tions with Queen Caroline, 381 ; inter- 
view with her, 382 ; discusses cheese 
with Jeanie, 394 ; in Mrs. Glass’s shop, 
402 ; his wife and daughters, 409 ; his 
letter to Jeanie, 423 ; praises Lady 
Staunton, 486 ; his death, 488 ; anec- 
dotes of, 556 

Arthur’s Seat, Author’s favourite resort, 
71 ; duels on, 108 
‘ At the sight of Dunbarton,’ 396 
Auchingower, Jeanie’s home, 457 
Author’s Introduction, ix; and Arthur’s 
Seat, 71 ; connection with Quakerism, 
xviii, 539 

Bailzou, Annaple, 513, 515 
Balchristie, Mrs. Janet, 264 
Beersheba, Butler’s croft, 72 
Bellfim BellMluin, 562 
Bess Wynd, 38, 542 
Bible, folding a leaf of, 99 
Bickerton, Mrs., of York, 285, 289 
Bishops, Scottish, expulsion of, 406, 557 
Bitera politics. See Bubbleburgh 
Borrowing days, 287, 557 
Bovet’s Pandcemonium, quoted, 553 
Brownie, 263 

Bubbleburgh and Bitem politics, 12, 15 
Buckholmside cheese, 395, 557 
Butler, David, guides Lady Staunton, 
506 ; gets a commission, 637 
Butler, Mrs., Reuben’s grandmother, 78; 
her pride In him, 86 

Butler, Reuben, corrects Saddletree’s 
Latin, 39 ; his discussions with Saddle- 
tree, 39, 43, 275 ; distress at Effie’s 
misfortune, 46 ; chaplain to the rioters, 
52 ; tries to save Porteous, 64, 66 ; 
escapes from Edinburgh, 67 ; history of, 
71 ; early associated Avith Jeanie Deans, 


80; licensed as a preacher, 86; en- 
counters Robertson in the King’s Park, 
108 ; sympathetic visit to the Deans 
family, 114 ; apprehended, 134 ; ex- 
amined by the bailie, 136, 140; does 
not identify Madge Wildfire, 167 ; 
visited by Jeanie, 277 ; gives her a 
letter to Argyle, 281; Jeanie’s letters 
to him, 287, 401 ; appointed to Knock- 
tarlitie church, 435 ; welcomes Jeanie 
home, 447 ; his ordination, 461 ; mar- 
riage to Jeanie Deans, 473 ; beha\’iour 
towards David Deans, 475 ; plays back- 
gammon Avith Knockdunder, 478 ; buys 
Craigsture, 494 ; intercourse AAuth Sir 
G. Staunton, 515 ; his loyalty to the 
Scottish Kirk, 521 ; lands at Caird’s 
Cove, 525 ; takes charge of Lady Staun- 
ton’s affairs, 534 

Butler, Stephen or ‘ Bible,' 71 ; Lorn’s 
testimony to, 369 

Caird’s Cove, 525 

Cameronians, horror of dancing, 98, 552 ; 
belief in apparitions, 151, 554 ; sects 
of, 198 ; meeting at Talla Linns, 200, 
555 ; attitude to government, 201 ; 
leaders, 447 ; shining lights of, 476 
Carlyle, Dr., his recollections of the 
Porteous mob, 550 

Caroline, Queen, and the Porteous riot, 
35, 68 ; characteristics of, 380 ; inter- 
view Avith Argyle, 382; with Jeanie 
Deans, 387 ; her gift to Jeanie, 392 
Carspharn John, 90, 152, 551 
‘ Cauld is my bed. Lord Archibald,’ 418 
Cheese, Scotch, 394 

Child-murder in Scotland, 48, 125, 157, 
542 

City Guard of Edinburgh, 24, 542 ; dis- 
armed by Porteous mob, 55 
Cleishbotham, Jedediah, his preface, xa' ; 
his Envoy, 538 

Clyde, river, 423 ; beauties of firth, 428 
College students of Edinburgh, 75 
Covenant, and the govenunent, 201 
Crabbe, quoted, 10, 102, 362 
Crorabie v. MacPhail, 277 
Crossmyloof, Counsellor, Saddletree’s 
oracle, 39, 42, 124 


INDEX 


573 


IUbby, I\frs. Deputy, 404 

Dalgleish, Jock, 164, 554 

Dalton, Mrs., Staunton’s iiousekeeper, 
337 ; takes charge of Jeanie, 356 

Damahoy, Miss, lament over the Union, 
37, 40; and the verdict on Eftie, 
242 

Dancing, Cameronians’ horror of, 98, 
552 

Deans, David, 74 ; his worldly success, 

83 ; jealousy of Butler, 86 ; removes to 
St. Leonard’s Crags, 90 ; horror of 
dancing, 98 ; distress at Effie’s dis- 
grace, 105 ; reception of Butler in his 
distress, 114 ; discussion with Saddle- 
tree, 121 ; rejects the aid of counsel, 
126; repudiates Effie, 196; bids Jeanie 
follow her conscience, 204 ; attends at 
the trial, 217 ; swoons in court, 240 ; 
taken to Mrs. Saddletree’s, 252 ; letter 
of thanks to Jeanie, 405 ; resolves to 
leave St. Leonard’s, 406; welcomes 
Jeanie at Roseneath, 429 ; appointed 
to manage the Duke’s farm, 432 ; visits 
Dumbiedikes, 436 ; hears of Butler’s 
preferment, 438 ; on the ordination 
oath, 439; his future home, 458; his 
first - born joke, 465 ; his bickerings 
with Butler, 475 ; helps rescue the 
minister’s cows, 490 ; dies, 491 

Deans, Effie, Mrs. Saddletree’s sympathy 
for, 45 ; urged to fiy from the prison, 

63 ; description of, 94 ; scolded by 
Jeanie, 97 ; takes service with Mrs. 
Saddletree, 100; her misfortune, 102; 
apprehended, 104; interrogated by the 
procurator, 182 ; interview with Jeanie 
whilst in jail, 208 ; placed in the dock, 
222 ; her declaration, 232 ; found guilty, 
246 ; second interview with Jeanie, 
255 ; her connection with George Staun- 
ton, 343 ; is pardoned, 391 ; runs aw'ay 
from her father, 448 ; letter to her 
father, 449; surprises Jeanie at Eose- 
neath, 468; affecting letter to Jeanie, 
480 ; praised by the Duke of Argyle, 
486 ; tenor of her letters, 489. See 
Jurther, Staunton, Lady 

Deans, Jeanie, early association with 
Butler, 80 ; and the visits of Dumbie- 
dikes, 83, 91 ; personal description of, 

84 ; admires Butler’s learning, 88 ; 
scolds Effie, 97 ; breaks off her engage- 
ment, 118 ; meets Robertson at Mus- 
chat’s Cairn, 149, 154; escapes from 
Sharpitlaw’s party, 184 ; difficulties 
attending her evidence, 204 ; interview 
■with Elfie in jail, 208; at the trial, 
219 ; in the witness-box, 237 ; receives 
her father’s blessing, 254; second in- 
terview with Effie, 255 ; takes Rat- 
cliffe’s pass, 257 ; asks assi.stance from 
Dumbiedikes, 267 ; his wooing, 268 ; 
visit to Butler, 277 ; letters to her 
father, 286, 399 ; to Butler, 287, 401 ; 
stopped by highwaymen, 297 ; danger 
in their hut, 309 ; led into church by 
Madge Wildfire, 323 ; brought before | 
Rev. Mr. Staunton, 334 ; interview with 1 


George Staunton, 339 ; his relations 
with Effie, 340 ; put in Mrs. Dalton’s 
charge, 356 ; escorted to Stamford, 
359 ; arrives in London, 362 ; interview 
with Argyle, 365 ; cross-questioned by 
Mrs. Glass, 373, 396; taken to Rich- 
mond, 375 ; interview with Queen Caro- 
line, 387; discusses cheese w'ith the 
Duke, 394 ; her father’s reply to her 
letter to him, 405 ; presented to the 
Duchess, 409 ; sets off home, 410 ; at 
Madge Wildfire’s death, 417 ; her dis- 
tress at the change of route, 422 ; 
meeting with her father, 429; with 
Butler, 447 ; inspects her future home, 
457 ; deligh't at seeing the cow's, 459 ; 
unpacks the Argyle presents, 460 ; 
surprised by Effie at Roseneath, 468 ; 
marriage to Butler, 473; joys and 
crosses of her married life, 474 ; reads 
Effie’s letter, 480 ; her transitory pique, 
483 ; surprises Butler with the money, 
492 ; is visited by Lady Staunton, 499 ; 
visits the Whistler, 535 ; loosens his 
cords, 536 

Deans, Mrs. Rebecca, 84 

Dempster of court, 247, 555. See also 
Hangman 

Dhu, John, of the City Guard, 26 

Dick, Sir William, of Braid, 193, 555 

Dickson, Maggie. See Half-lianged Maggie 
Dickson 

DoJiacha Dhu, 490, 507 ; attacks Butler 
and Sir George Staunton, 530 ; killed 
by Knockdunder, 530 ; his plans, 
533 

Doomster of court, 247, 555. See also 
Hangman 

Dumbiedikes, old laird of, 73 ; deathbed 
of, 75 

Dumbiedikes, young laird of, at his 
father’s deathbed, 75 ; his character, 
77 ; his visits to the Deans, S3, 91 ; his 
wooing, 92, 268 ; offers money to help 
Effie, 105, 128 ; appealed to by Jeanie, 
267 ; married, 436 

Dumbiedikes mansion-house, 261 ; situa- 
tion of, 550 

Dunbarton, Castle of, 424 

Dundas, James, younger, of Arniston, 
126 

Dunover, Mr., mail-coach passenger, 5; 
his history, 13 

Dutton, Mrs. Dolly, 394 ; curiosity to 
witness the execution, 412; refuses to 
go on the w'ater, 425 ; appeiirs late for 
breakfast, 455 ; jealousy of Jeanie’s 
presents, 460 ; refuses to land at Rose- 
neath pier, 467 ; sends Meg Murdock- 
son’s Confession to Jeanie, 496 

Edinburgh, City Guard of, 24, 55, 542 ; 
communication with London, 284 ; 
courts, 218 ; Grassmarket, 17, 28, 32 ; 
guard-house, 54 ; hangman, 139, 247 ; 
‘ Heartof Midlothian’ in, 7; King’s Park, 
90, 108, 113, 153 ; Krames, 51 ; Lucken- 
booths, 51, 55 ; magistrates of, 27, 58 ; 
mob, 33. 52; ports, 52, 54; students. 


574 


INDEX 


75, 550; tolbooth, 7, 60, 57, 543 ; 
Tolbootli Church, 21 
Envoy, Cleishbotham’s, 538 

Fairbrother, Effie’s counsel, 225, 242 
Fairies, belief in, 151 ; fairy boy of Leith, 

553 

Fairscrieve, city-clerk, 140, 161, 187 
Fair sex, calumniator of, 186 
Feckless Fannie, 558 
Ferguson, or Fergusson, on City Guard, 
25 

Fife, smuggling in, 19 

Fleming, Archdeacon, of Carlisle, 496, 513 

Forbes, Duncan, 403 

Gare Loch, 428 

Glass, Mrs., her instructions to Jeanic, 
367 ; cross-questions Jeanie, 373, 396 ; 
and the Duke’s visit, 402 
Goldie, Mrs. , of Craigmuie, ix ; her 
daughter’s letter, xii 
‘ Good even, good fair moon,’ 179 
Gordon, Francis, death of, 444, 561 
Grassmarket, Edinburgh, 17 ; execution 
of Wilson in, 28 ; at the execution of 
Porteous, 32 

Graves, Bow Street officer, on Avomen, 

554 

Guard-house, Edinburgh, 54 
Gunnerby Hill, near Grantham, 294 ; 
Jeanie stopped by highwaymen near, 
297 

Half-hanged Maggie Dickson, 415, 558 
Halkit, Edinburgh lawyer, 4 
Hangman of Edinburgh, 139, 247, 552. 

See also Dalgleish and Doomster 
Harabee Brow Hill, 412 
Hardie, Edinburgh advocate, 4 
Hardwicke, Lord, and the Duke of 
Argyle, 364, 556 

‘ Headstrong, determined in his own 
career,’ 362 

Heart of Midlothian, Edinburgh, 7. See 
Tolbooth 

Heart of Midlothian, the novel, ix 
‘ He that is down,’ 318 
Hettly, May, 258 ; shows Jeanie the 
cows, 458 

Highwaymen on the North Road, 297 
Howden, Mrs., on Porteous’s reprieve, 37, 
40 ; on the verdict on Effie, 249 

‘ I GLANCE like the wildfire,’ 168 
‘ I’m Madge of the country,’ 318 
‘ In the bonny cells of Bedlam,’ 303 
Invisible Avorld, Covenanters’ belief in, 
112, 151 

Irongray, place of Helen Walker’s burial, 
xiii, 539 

‘ It is the bonny butcher lad,’ 180 

Kelpie’s Voice, 542 
King’s Advocate, 224, 241 
King’s Park, 90, 108, 113, 153 
Knockdunder, Captain of, 451 ; smokes 


in church, 462; his boat run down, 
471 ; interposes in behalf of Ailie 
MacClure, 484 ; escorts Lady Staunton 
to Knocktarlitie, 499 ; hunts Donacha 
Dhu, 527 ; kills him, 530 
Knocktarlitie, manse of, 457 
Krames of the tolbooth, Edinburgh, 51 

Law-courts, Edinburgh, 218 
LaAvson, Miss Helen, ix 
Lawyers, Scottish, Deans’s objection to, 
122, 126 

Leith, fairy boy of, 553 
Levitt, Frank, highwayman, stops Jeanie, 
297 ; colloquy with Meg Murdockson, 
306 ; committal of, 496 
Liberton, 273 

Lily of St. Leonard’s. See Deans, Effie 
Lincluden Abbey, ix 
Lochaber axe, 26 

Lockman, 139, 247, 552. See also Dal- 
gleish and Doomster 
London, communication with Edinburgh, 
284 

Lord High Commissioner of Scottish 
Kirk, 512 

Lords of seat and of session, 40 
Luckenbooths, 51, 55 

Madge Wildfire, before the procurator, 
166 ; questioned by Ratcliffe, 169 ; leads 
the officers to Muschat’s Cairn, 177 ; 
her conduct towards her mother, 191 ; 
accosts Jeanie on the North Road, 296 ; 
takes her into her OAvn apartment, 301 ; 
leads her from the hut, 310 ; quotes 
Pilgrim’s Progress, 314, 319 ; teUs of her 
past history, 314 ; bedecks herself with, 
finery, 321 ; enters the church, 323 ; her 
connection with George Staunton, 342 ; 
appeals to Jeanie at Carlisle, 415 ; her 
death, 417 ; prototype of, 558 
Magistrates of Edinburgh, 27, 58 
Mail-coaches, 1 
Marsport v. Lackland, 124 
Meiklehose, Elder, 462, 465 
Middleburgh, Bailie, 186 ; visits St. 
Leonard’s, 194 

Mob of Edinburgh, 33 ; Porteous mob, 
52-68 

‘ Much have I fear’d,’ 10 
Murdockson, Meg, demands her daughter, 
189 ; in the highAvaymen’s hut, 299 ; 
her colloquy Avith Levitt, 306 ; relations 
with George Staunton, 342, 345 ; her 
execution, 412 ; her Dying Confession, 
496 

Muschat’s Cairn, 113, 153 ; story of Nicol 
Muschat, 552 

Netherboav Port, Edinburgh, 54 
NeAvark, Jeanie at, 294 
Novit, Nichil, the attorney, 75 ; his son 
acts for Effie, 220 

Ordination oath. Deans on, 439, 463; 
Butler’s, 461 


INDEX 


575 


‘ O sleep ye soxmd, Sir James,’ 181 
Ostler, Dick, 290, 293 
‘ Our work is over — over now,’ 417 

Peden, Life of, quoted, 197 
Pilgrim’s Progress cited, 314, 319 
Pittenweem, Wilson’s robbery at, 19 
Plumdanias, on Porteous’s reprieve, 37, 
39 ; acts as peacemaker, 249 ; at 
Saddletree’s house, 517 
Porteous, Captain John, 24, 27 ; his 
cruelty to Wilson, 28 ; fires upon the 
mob, 29 ; reprieved, 35 ; dragged out of 
the tolbooth, 62 ; hanged, 67 
Porteous, Mrs., 517; indemnified for her 
husband’s death, 556 
Porteous mob, 52-68, 543 ; official inquiry 
into, 544-550 ; Dr. Carlyle’s recollections 
of, 550 

Ports, or gates, of Edinburgh, 52, 51 
Portsburgh, suburb of Edinburgh, 52 
‘ Proud Maisie is in the wood,’ 419 

Quakerism, Author’s connection with, 
xviii, 539 

Ratcliffe, Jim, refuses to leave the 
tolbooth, 63 ; before the magistrate, 
137 ; his interview with Sharpitlaw, 
163 ; questions Madge Wildfire, 169 ; 
goes to Muschat’s Cairn, 176 ; ap- 
pointed jailor of the tolbooth, 206 ; 
gives Jeanie his pass, 257 ; his com- 
munication to Sir George, 531 ; note on, 
562 

Richmond Park, scene in, 382 ; Richmond 
Hill, view from, 378 

Robertson, Geordie, associated with Wil- 
son, 19 ; attempted escape, 20 ; actual 
escape, 22 ; his part in the Porteous 
riot, 63 ; accosted by Butler in the 
King’s Park, 108 ; meets Jeanie at 
Muschat’s Cairn, 154; escapes from 
the police officers, 160. See further, 
Staunton, George 

Rory Bean, Dumbiedikes’s pony, 92, 130, 
270 

Roseneath, 424, 428, 451 
Ross, Alex., his Fortunate Shepherd 
quoted, 456 

Saddletree, Bartoline, 37 ; his Latin, 
39 ; discussions with Butler, 39, 43, 
275 ; on Effie’s case, 46 ; his ^vice to 
David Deans, 117, 122 ; puts the case 
of Marsport v. Lackland, 124 ; at Effie’s 
trial, 220; recites Argyle on the Porteous 
mob, 251 ; intrudes on Butler, 275 ; his 
version of Crombie v. MacPhail, 277 ; 
in after years, 517 

Saddletree, Mrs., 38 ; cares of the shop, 
43 ; takes Effie into her employment, 
100 ; makes tea for Sir G. Staunton, 
517 

St. Anthony’s Chapel, 153 

St. Leonard’s Crags, 90 

Salisbury Crags, near Edinburgh, 70 


Scotsmen, clannish feeling of, 396 
Scottish bishops, expulsion of, 406, 557 
Semple, John, 90, 152, 551 
Sharpitlaw, his interview with Ratcliffe, 
163 ; examines Madge Wildfire, 166 ; 
examines Effie, 173 ; attempts to cap- 
ture Robertson, 176 ; his sneer at 
women, 186, 554 
Shawfield’s mob, 423, 560 
Shaws, murder of the two, 254, 557 
Smuggling in Scotland, 18, 454 
Somerset stage-coach, 4 
‘ Some say that we wan,’ 409 
Speculative Society, Edinburgh, 14 
‘ Stand to it, noble pikemen,’ 331 
Staunton, George, discovers himself to 
Jeanie, 339 ; his story, 342 ; upbraided 
by his father, 351 ; offers his life to 
save Effie’s, 358 ; his history, 360 ; ap- 
pears at Roseneath, 369 ; in the Lord 
High Commissioner’s train, 512 ; seeks 
Butler’s acquaintance, 515 ; turns in 
to the Saddletrees’ house, 517 ; assists 
Mrs. Porteous, 517 ; challenged by 
Ratcliffe, 518 ; thinks to offer Butler 
a living, 521 ; lands at Caird’s Cove, 
525 ; killed, 530 

Staunton, Lady, arrives at Knocktarlitie, 
499 ; appearance and manners of, 500, 
504 ; her danger at the waterfall, 507 ; 
her grief for Sir George’s death, 531 ; 
her subsequent history, 536 
Staunton, Rev. Mr., observes Jeanie in 
church, 325 ; hears her story, 334 ; ui)- 
braids his son, 351 ; his history, 361 
Stubbs, the Willingham beadle, 328 
Students of Edinburgh, 75, 550 
Suffolk, Lady, 382 

Supernatural visitants, belief in, 112, 151, 
507 

Surplice, Presbyterian objection to, 325 

Talla Linns, Cameronian conference at, 
200, 555 

Thames, from Richmond Hill, 378 
‘ There’s a bloodhound ranging,’ 181 
‘The water gently down the level slid,’ 
456 

Thomas, servant at Willingham, 330 
Tillicidian, Saddletree’s collision with, 
276 

Tolbooth, old, Edinburgh, 7, 50, 543 ; 
broken into by Porteous mob, 57- 
60 

Tolbooth Church, Robertson’s escape 
from, 21 

Tolling to service, 461, 562 

Tramp, Gaffer, 414 

Trees, planting of, 75, 550 

Tyburn, London, 17 

Tyburn Tom, highwayman, 297, 496 

Union, the, lament over, 37, 40 

Waiters, Edinburgh gate-keepers, 53 
Walker, Helen, prototype of Jeanie Deans, 
X, xiii ; her tombstone and epitaph, 
539 


576 


INDEX 


Walker, Pafrick, Canieronian liistorian, 
99, 551 ; on Francis Gordon’s death, 
444, 561 ; his book cited, 551, 557, 561 
Wallace Inn, Gandercleugh, 5 
West Port, Edinburgh, 54 
Whackbairn, Liberton schoolmaster, 47, 
274 

‘ What did ye \vi’ the bridal ring,’ 170 
‘ When the fight of grace,’ 418 
‘ When the gled’s in the blue cloud,’ 
159 

AVhistler, Effie’s child, 509; rescues Lady 
Staunton, 508 ; captured by Knock- 


dunder, 530 ; his history, 532, 536 ; 
escapes, 535 

Willingham rectory, 329 
Willoughby, Peregrine Bertie, Lord, 331 
Wilson, Andrew, smuggler, 19 ; attempted 
escape, 20 ; secures Robertson’s escape, 
22 ; execution of, 28 ; Staunton’s con- 
nection with, 343 
Witchcraft, belief in, 112, 151 
Women, cynical opinion of, 554 
Woodend cottage, 78 

York, James, blacksmith of Lincoln, 331 


END OF THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 


Printed by R. I't R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh. 


















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